Issue with 401(k) "Amount to be Contributed by the Plan Due Date" page in Turbotax

[lt_usa]

I have on ongoing Solo 401(k). 

I follow the instructions at the "How do I enter a Solo 401(k) in TurboTax?" webpage ( https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/self-employed/enter-solo-401-k-turbotax/... )

That seems to work fine.  For a year that I also had my taxes done by an accountant,  Turbotax 401k contribution amounts matched what the accountant said I should contribute.

Later in Turbotax, I get to the "Personal" section, sub-tab "Deductions and Credits", then "Done with Deductions" at the bottom of that page, we next go past pages for "Charitable Donations", "Income to High to Deduct An IRA Contribution", "Retirement Income Results" (e.g., a pension income, Roth IRA conversion amounts), and "IRA Contribution Results" (for after tax IRA).

After that, then we get to the "Retirement Deductions Results". 

On the first line it shows "Keogh, SEP, SIMPLE and/or 401(k) Maximum" with a Total Contribution of "$0", when I had filled in, for 2019, $19000 and $6000 catch-up.  Why is it "$0" here?

On the next line, in red letters, it says "Amount to be Contributed by Plan Due Date".  This is a negative number and is not the amount that I have yet to contribute.  The value is the amount of my business contribution to the 401(k) (from the maximum check-box choice) MINUS the $25000 employee contribution.  This doesn't make sense to me.

This issue is shows up in 2019, 2020 and 2021 (maybe further back, too).

IF...my self-employed business contribution in a particular year is higher than the $26,000 (2021) maximum individual contribution, then the "Amount to be Contributed by the Plan Due Date" is a positive number, but, again, it is not the amount I have yet to contribute.  The value is, again, the amount of my business contribution to the 401(k) (from the maximum check-box choice) MINUS the $25000 employee contribution.  Just a positive number for type of year.

Can anyone explain how to remedy this situation? Is this a bug in the software for Individual 401(k) when the Employee (i.e., me) Elective Deferrals are made to a Roth 401(k) and there is also a Self-employed Employer (i.e., me) profit sharing contribution.

As a note, at least one other person posted a question about a negative amount in years past (although a very short question).  I don't think the answer that I saw really answered the question (in part because that question was not very explanatory).

Thank you in advance.

[tagteam]

You might want to contact Support.

What is the TurboTax phone number? (intuit.com)

[lt_usa]

Thanks for the quick response. 

I talked with  tech support who, while we were on the phone for almost 2 hours and doing a shared session, made screen shots and she got support from other technical staff regarding the issues while de discussed.  She agrees the page does not look right and I got her to elevate the issue to a higher level.

I received an Elevated Support call back from a multi-domain expert and enrolled agent.  She also feels that page in TT is wrong and confusing (e.g., negative number implies an over contribution which is not correct based on the entries).  We also talked for over an hour and a half during two calls.  She has elevated (or something like that) the issue and left the case open.

I think the two Intuit support people and I agree that there is a BUG in Turbotax on the page that I referenced, "Retirement Deduction Results", in both the presentation of the negative "Amount to be Contributed by the Plan Due Date" and in that the page is missing other retirement contribution information that should be there.  The page clears up and looks reasonable if  I don't do a Roth 401(k) contribution and, instead, do a non-Roth 401(k) contribution). 

Also, I pointed out to the Turbotax to the support people that this issue goes back to at least 2015.  I confirmed that by opening TT 2015 and going to that page.  I also believe this issue goes at least 2010 but I'd have to re-install TT software to confirm and I'm not going to do that.

Is their a place where users can submit potential bugs for evaluation and correction?  I would like this to be fixed in the 2021 Turbotax Home and Business (just so I can see that is is fixed now) but I think it certainly must be fixed in the 2022 Turbotax Home and Business by the 2022 filing dates.

Thank you for your suggestion to contact Support.

[DeeDee42]

After 17 hours muddling with extremely confusing entry portion for the 401(k) and this contribution summary page you are talking about, I think I figured it out. It is a negative number because TurboTax programmers programmed it wrong!!! It is negative because it's calculating your max SEP or SIMPLE IRA and not the max solo/individual 401(k). Thank you for your post about it, because I would have spent an additional10 hours rummaging through the IRS code to try and figure it out. In other words, your post at least let me know that it's not just me.