I have tried to submit my taxes to the IRS online using TurboTax, but it was rejected due to my wife's 2020 AGI not matching. I used TurboTax last year and it populated the same amount as was submitted on last year's return. I tried to reenter the same number, but it keeps getting rejected. How do you fix this?
Please see the below TurboTax help article for a list of potential reasons that returns get rejected due to the AGI and suggested solutions.
What if I entered the correct AGI and I'm still getting an e-file reject?
There was an article in the Washington Post about this issue on 4/6/22 because of the millions of 2020 Submissions that had not been processed so there was nothing to verify the identity against. The article said to enter $0 as the 2020 AGI. I initially did this for myself, but forgot to enter $0 for wife on a joint account. Once I completed that entry I got the email that both Federal and State were accepted. The TT software still says Federal is rejected, but State is accepted. Since this occurred yesterday, I will wait a few days to see if the software is updated to the Federal is "Accepted", and if not will rely on the email unless I hear something different.
Check tomorrow with the IRS website Where’s My Refund? for updated information. The IRS updates the refund page once a day.
If it rejected, then you can enter zero for both of you. If you filed a return and the IRS adjusted it, there is another possibility of change in AGI. View your tax account with the IRS to see your tax transcript from last year on file with the IRS for the AGI.
@kalispell19
Thanks for your comment, which confirms my comment about entering $0. I haven't had a refund in years so never had to care about a refund. I only care that my filing was received, which has nothing to do with a refund. It is interesting to me that entering $0 as the AGI hasn't been broadly advertised, but instead, having to depend on a random article by Michelle Singletary in WaPo.
However, I will check my 2020 submission, which was a hard copy filing. For 3 years, the IRS has not included my 1099 consulting income on Schedule SE Line 6 into my yearly Social Security wages. This isn't your issue, but instead my annual battle.
Established my ID.Me account, logged into the IRS site and checked for my 2020 tax return. As I expected, that return has not been reviewed, which validates why I had to enter $0 as the 2020 AGI, why my Social Security earnings do not show my 1099-MISC consulting income, and one other issue I will not discuss in. public forum. I understand the issues that the IRS has been impacted by in the past 2 years, but It is really sad that the work processes are so incredibly broken and still far from resolution.
We filed for an extension of our 2020 return and submitted a hard copy to the IRS via return receipt in September 2021. The return was not processed until February of 2022. Our 2021 was rejected 3 times until I read somewhere that you must enter zero for AGI if your return was not processed before the end of December 2021 by the IRS. Fourth try and it was finally accepted.
@Tabby1843 Did your TT software change to accepted or are you referring to getting an email from the IRS that it was accepted. I have the email, but the TT software still says rejected. My State submission status changed from rejected to accepted (per requirements, the State cannot be accepted until Federal is accepted) when I received the email accepted email from Federal.
Both the IRS and TT said that our return was accepted. And eventually the state and TT said that our return was accepted. I e-filed the Federal return first to get it accepted and then the state return through intuit for $25.
Last year I made the mistake of filing the federal and state return at the same time and once the federal was rejected, the state automatically rejected you and you're out the $25.
@ Tabby1843
wrote:Last year I made the mistake of filing the federal and state return at the same time and once the federal was rejected, the state automatically rejected you and you're out the $25.
Does that mean you were unable to fix the Federal rejection and efile last year? If you were able to correct last year's Federal return and efile it, and once it was accepted, you shouldn't have to pay the $25 again to resubmit the state return efile last year. If you were never able to successfully efile the state return last year when you tried to resubmit and thus "out the $25", I'd ask TurboTax for a refund of that state efile fee.
IRS rejected my return due to 2020 AGI not matching, but it does match what was submitted in 2020. How to fix the problem?
When you say that that the 2020 AGI not matching, but does match, is that based on your e-Filed or hard copy return matching. There are a millions of hard copy 2020 returns that have not been processed, and as such, the IRS does not know your 2020 AGI to compare a 2021 e-File value. Not sure if this is your issue, but if it is, then you have a lot of friends. This is the basis for entering $0 for the AGI in the validation step that has worked for others.
I have submitted my 2020 AGI as $0, after which, I did receive the accepted Federal and State emails. However, Turbo Tax software still says my Federal is rejected, but my State is now accepted. Since I have the "accepted" email for the Federal submission, do I simply ignore the the TT "rejection" comment.
Did you check your e-file status using this tool? @kalispell9.
I went to the site and stopped filling it out because it was requesting information as though I hadn't filled out or submitted my tax information. I didn't know who was going to receive this information, which I considered confidential so discontinued filling out the form, as it was acting like phishing. I was expecting a simple link to the right IRS site.
I had previously periodically checked the IRS on-line site earlier about the status, which stated the filing had not been processed. That was not a surprised given the timing. I did not see a statement that the e-file had been received.
@ kalispell9
wrote:I have submitted my 2020 AGI as $0, after which, I did receive the accepted Federal and State emails. However, Turbo Tax software still says my Federal is rejected, but my State is now accepted. Since I have the "accepted" email for the Federal submission, do I simply ignore the the TT "rejection" comment.
I have seen occasional comments from users who say that after efiling in the the desktop software, it's not reporting the efile status correctly in the program, even when they do a manual status check from within the software. You say your software shows the state return as "accepted". That at least is some circumstantial evidence, since an efiled state return cannot be accepted unless the Federal return has also been accepted first. Check in the software again over the next day or two, and see if it updates the Federal status.
What OS are you using? I'm curious if this is happening to some folks using the Windows version or Mac version. Or if it's occurring to some in both versions. It's not happening to a great many folks, or we'd see many more questions in this forum about it, and so far I've only seen an occasional question in that regard. But obviously I'm not in the forum all the time.
Thanks for the follow-up. I am on OS12.3.1. Appreciate the comment about State being accepted, while Federal isn't, combined with my email that Federal is accepted, as the basis for believing the Federal has been accepted. I do not want to resubmit the Federal, if it is already accepted as that could really mess things up.
I check the TT software status daily, which consistently says rejected. I am unsure about the IRS comment that 'tax return has not been processed. Does that mean it has been accepted, but just not processed.
Thanks for your interest. Do you work for TT or simply an interested observer.
If the status is showing accepted, this means it has been accepted but not processed. You will need to wait for the return to be processed. @kalispell9
@ kalispell9
wrote:I am on OS12.3.1. Appreciate the comment about State being accepted, while Federal isn't, combined with my email that Federal is accepted, as the basis for believing the Federal has been accepted. I do not want to resubmit the Federal, if it is already accepted as that could really mess things up.
I check the TT software status daily, which consistently says rejected. I am unsure about the IRS comment that 'tax return has not been processed. Does that mean it has been accepted, but just not processed.
Thanks for your interest. Do you work for TT or simply an interested observer.
No, I do NOT work for TurboTax. I'm a fellow user that volunteers in the forum.
Thanks for the Mac info. It will be interesting to see if other users with that experience are also using Mac or if some are using Windows.
The IRS "Where's My Refund" tool won't have any information at all for a return that is rejected. For a rejected return, if a user enters SSN, filing status, and refund amount into the WMR tool, it will say something like "no information found". If the IRS WMR tool does find your information, then you at least know they received it and are processing it. In early stages it will likely say the return "is being processed." In later stages if there is a delay, it might say "is still being processed". There should also be a progress bar at the top of that results interface. I don't think you will see that phrase "tax return has not been processed" in the WMR tool, so I'm not sure where you are seeing that. Or maybe you were paraphrasing "is being processed?"
@ CarissaM
It's the user's desktop software for Mac that is not updating to show the Federal return status of accepted, even though user has received the acceptance emails, and the software says the state return was accepted. I have seen that for a few other users when they try to check the efile status inside their desktop software; a few are getting a message that they haven't efiled (even when they check manually inside the software), even though they have received acceptance emails.
@ kalispell9
I left you a detailed comment above about what you may be experiencing at the IRS "Where's My Refund" tool.
As for your desktop software efile status not updating, maybe you want to phone TurboTax Support to inform them of your experience and to see if they are getting reports from other users with a similar issue. Or if they have any additional suggestion.
Hours are 5AM-9PM Pacific (8AM-12AM Midnight Eastern), 7 days/week.
FAQ: What is the TurboTax phone number?
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/what-is-the-turbotax-phone-number/00/25632
Specific words under Account Status are, "Your 2021 Tax Return is Not Processed". Then there is a further comment about timing for an e-file (takes 21 days) or hard copy (6 weeks). I will not have a refund. I have rechecked my 2020 paper filing and it still has not been processed, so I believe the entering $0 for the AGI is still valid.
As a side note, did you see my earlier response about clicking on a link and entering information to address my situation, which sounded like a phishing response as I didn't understand the reason for entering that information.
@ kalispell9
wrote:Specific words under Account Status are, "Your 2021 Tax Return is Not Processed". Then there is a further comment about timing for an e-file (takes 21 days) or hard copy (6 weeks). I will not have a refund. I have rechecked my 2020 paper filing and it still has not been processed, so I believe the entering $0 for the AGI is still valid.
As a side note, did you see my earlier response about clicking on a link and entering information to address my situation, which sounded like a phishing response as I didn't understand the reason for entering that information.
Yes, entering a 2020 AGI of 0 works for many filers whose 2020 returns were delayed in processing last year; i.e., if not finished processing prior to November 2021 or so, or whose AGI, for some reason, was not in the IRS database. I realize you're just wanting proof of acceptance since your software has not come forth with it.
Oh my.... I think you and I are referring to 2 different things. My detailed answer above specifically talked about the IRS "Where's My Refund" (WMR) tool, not an IRS account.
If you don't have a refund, then you can disregard that. Sorry about that. I didn't realize the IRS comment you mentioned was from your IRS account. And I didn't know when I wrote that that you are not expecting a refund. I didn't read through every previous post on this long thread to put two and two together. There are too many comments to keep track of in this long thread.
If you are seeing something that says "Account Status", then it sounds like you may be referring to something inside your actual IRS Account. Sorry, but I don't even know if that will change on the main page of the IRS Account until the return has been processed. I don't know that it will update any while it's being processed. However, at some point soon you should be able to get info from an IRS tax return transcript (accessed through the Tax Records tab in the IRS Account), which would hopefully show it was received, but I'm not sure how long it takes for it to show up in a transcript after efiling is accepted, but it's easy to check the transcript occasionally since you already have the IRS account.
As for the info on the link you mentioned, I'm not familiar with that page you were provided, but it looks like it might be only for Online TurboTax filers since it asks folks to sign back into their TurboTax account to check the efile status. Since you didn't use Online TurboTax, it might instead think you are starting a new Online return and begin the interview process for a new return. That would be my guess for what you experienced there (I don't have a way to test it.) Online TurboTax account will not have a status for a desktop return.
Again, if you have additional concerns or want to report the software problem, please reach out to TurboTax Support for assistance. I provided the contact info previously.
Thanks for your feedback. There were a few other postings where I also recognized I was talking apples and oranges with others. However, you had some good information, which helped me evaluate this situation trying to understand the interaction of TT and the IRS incompetence processing the 2020 paper filings.
Fortunately, I have an email that my tax return was accepted by IRS (although not recognized by TT), and I just saw that my tax payment of $3K+ was cashed by the IRS. I will check in with the IRS periodically on their paperwork, recognizing, the IRS still hasn't processed my 2020 filing. So be it. I would like think my blog helps TT and others work through this disfunction.