If I don't have a question -- I am trying to report a bug -- should I be worried that you don't accommodate bug reports?

[raoulwatson]

I disagree. I program web app in use in 14 States by municipality. We get tons of bug reports, that it the cost of doing business and the right thing to do to customers. A good quality control person can spot in seconds a user error. The real bugs can be reproduced. We are very thankful to our customer who served as an extended quality control to improve our prigrams.

[fanfare]

How many municipalities per state x 14 times staff assigned to related tasks with your software.

It's not in the tens of millions.

"We get tons of bug reports,"

Why is your software so buggy?

[raoulwatson]

Ok forget about me. Look at Apple and Microsoft they both have bug reporting mechanism. Do you think TurboTax is bigger than MacOS or Windows?

[xmasbaby0]

And meanwhile.....while you squabble about how to report bugs......we still do not know what the user above saw that seemed like a bug, so we have no way to alert TT.   

[raoulwatson]

There are many, but for starters, you can place a pdf return from last year (generated by any software like H&R Block or TurboTax). Now begin a new return, browse and try to import. I think it is utterly ridiculous that they can’t even read their own pdf. I can write this code in less than an hour (to simply read the personal info and last year figures from a 1040. 

it appears you have nothing to contribute to this thread. Have a nice day.

[raoulwatson]

I have to apologize for the previous response. That was NOT meant for you and it’s totally uncalled for.

look, TT is the one who made the claim that they can import pdf from other companies (it says so when you begin a new tax). But now it’s January and it still can’t import pdf from H&R Block.

I have called since November about this and yes they escalated it. But the answer I get is that it’s still to early and the program doesn’t know the forms yet. What had changed in 1040? Personal info is still in the same places. I just hate to have to renter those but I guess I will.

just don’t make the claim that TT can when it can’t.

[Paul JJ]

This is rather basic and I am surprised it has not been already corrected.  My turbo tax deluxe for 2021 has, in part, the 2020 version of form 2210.  The form is clearly labeled 2021.  However, Part 111 continues to show the 2020 estimated payments dates that begin with"7/15/20."  Additionally when doing the underpayment calculation, any estimate made for April 15 is ignored.  A penalty is therefore erroneously shown as due on the tax return.  It should be noted that the first installment is taken into consideration in determining the pre-penalty tax due, but is ignored in the penalty calculation.

[VolvoGirl]

It says it won't be ready until 3/17

https://care-cdn.prodsupportsite.a.intuit.com/forms-availability/turbotax_fed_windows_individual.htm... 

[Critter-3]

@raoulwatson 

You need to be transferring the info from the .tax2020 file and NOT the PDF ... what little transfers from the PDF is not worth the time and effort.    This is not a bug but SOP ... the PDF is just a picture the program cannot work with ... that is why a .taxfile is also produced.  Trying to transfer from a picture  would be like taking a picture of your pet to a vet and asking them to do surgery on it ... it just cannot be done.

You have to do the transfer of 2020 to 2021 at the very beginning, BEFORE you enter any new data.   If you started putting in any 2021 information without performing the transfer of the 2020 tax file to 2021, then you could clear and start over and transfer it correctly.   And----you MUST  be in the same account with the same user ID.

CLEAR AND START OVER

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2586254-how-do-i-clear-and-start-over

How to transfer last year’s return? https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1900883

[raoulwatson]

What makes it a bug is the fact that TT claimed they can do it, but it doesn't work.

The PDF I have is not a "picture" or scanned but a PDF generated by the program.

[Critter-3]

Again ... what little can be transferred from the PDF is not worth all this effort ... the info could have been simply entered anew in a couple of minutes.  

Next ... why could the program not find those PDF files on your computer ???   Do you have them on the hard drive and not a removable storage medium ?  Are they saved as a PDF ? 

[raoulwatson]

You missing the point. You claim it to be “not a bug”

If I click browse the program can find the pdf file but when imported TT said unable to import.

[DanielV01]

@raoulwatson  You could be dealing with an early-season functionality issue that is in the process of being resolved.  Just so we can diagnose and troubleshoot, what is the exact source of the PDF file you are trying to import?  And please see these two Help Articles to see if they provide any additional information you haven't already discovered:

• Can I transfer last year's PDF into the 2020 TurboTax for Windows CD/Download software?
• Error 102346

TurboTax's ability to convert PDF files is limited.  Essentially, the data on the PDF is read and then converted into .tax format so that it can be read.  If the information is not aligned (the program is misreading the ASCII characters or they are not correctly aligned in the PDF), this will prevent an import as well.  I'm not a computer programmer, so I don't want to speak authoritatively to say I know exactly what is going on.  But if you give us more detail, we might be able to get a resolution.

Please respond and tag me "@DanielV01" so I am alerted to your post.  We wish to assist you the best we can.

Again, though, if your PDF is not from TurboTax, HRBlock, or TaxAct, it will not be supported by TurboTax.

[raoulwatson]

Thanks Dan @DanielV01

I think this is very easy to reproduce. Im sure you can find a turbotax generated PDF from your return last year. Just try it yourself.

I had three pdf, not scanned but generated by TT and H&R block. The easy to test if a PDF is not scanned is simply open it with Adobe and try to select any text. On a scanned document (which is basically just a picture or bitmap), this wont work. So if you can select text and copy it then its a "real" pdf.

Internally, everything in the pdf file is represented by code "stream and endstream", for example:

<</Filter/FlateDecode/Length 10>>stream
xœ+ä î |   (<== actual data)
endstream

I have written many C+ code to open and read PDF files so I am a little surprised. I'm not sure what the TT programmers are actually looking for in the PDF file (I hope they don't look for generator or version specific output).

So if you can find last year PDF generated by TT, just try to browse to it to import and start a new return.

What I get is the following, on the two TT pdf files (I file an original return and also amended return), I get file too big error. On the H&R block which I originally did in 2021 (but never filed), I get unable (see screen shots of dialog box).

I have resigned to having to reinput my personal information so no big deal here. I just called TT last November to just report it.  Code wise its easy so not sure what the issue is. Reading input stream from PDF file in C+ is less than one page. You can even find so many free code like here https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7056/Code-to-extract-plain-text-from-a-PDF-file

I really think at its minimum, TT should be able to read pdf files generated by TT itself.

[DanielV01]

@raoulwatson  The technical computer language is above my personal paygrade but I believe I understand what your message is.  The one error you get stating that the file is too big sounds like the ASCII characters themselves are not getting read as ASCII, but as graphics.  ASCII text takes up 0 space (or virtually 0 anyways), so there's no logical reason why the embedded data should be "too big of a file"  unless there's something else on the back end.  I will escalate this.  I can't promise a resolution per se (especially since you are able to enter the information manually), but your observations help us to serve our customers better, and are appreciated.  

And thank you again for providing the detail you have.  It may give us more specifics to come to a resolution.  If I do find out that our programmers find a specific fix, I'll be happy to reach back out to you also.