How to import 1099-B documents from a past year?

[rstebler]

I'm doing my 2019 taxes a year late.  I went to import my 1099-B forms from Robinhood and Morgan Stanley and both of them came back with 1099 forms not available for user ID.  Any idea how to get this working?

[rjs · Accepted solution]

Importing is only available for the current tax year. You cannot import information for a past year. You will have to enter it manually.

[ChristiTheGreat]

Well...this is definitely NOT the answer I was hoping to find. Is there a fix for this in TurboTax planned for the future??

[rjs]

@ChristiTheGreat  There is nothing to fix, because nothing is broken. The import feature is only available for the current year. Importing 1099-B information for past years is not a feature that TurboTax offers. I don't think it will ever be offered. TurboTax can't do it on its own. It would need the participation of the financial institutions that are TurboTax import partners. TurboTax does not import the information from your online account at the financial institution. Each participating financial institution has to create a special file of information for TurboTax to import. The financial institutions provide the information for only the current year. To have all the partner financial institutions maintain files for multiple years, and have TurboTax select the appropriate year, would be a major undertaking. I suspect that only a very small number of people would use past-year importing, so it's not worthwhile for all the companies involved to make the investment to implement it.

[ChristiTheGreat]

Hmmm... then, perhaps the method should be that the companies ,upon request, furnish the file to us as a courtesy. Then, turbotax could offer the ability to upload the file directly from our p.c. 

Then again, sunshine and rainbows on a daily basis exist...like, nowhere, really?? 

Because,  right now, I really just want to believe they do. I mean, I really do. 

🤗