5 year history report not populating

[drozd1]

HI,

My 5 year history report wasn’t working so I got help from a tax advisor. He told me to look for my .tax files and I couldn’t find them on my computer even though I have been using Turbo Tax for over 5 years now. Come to find out I couldn’t find my files because this year I bought and installed my software, but the previous 5 years I was doing my taxes online. I never realized this and apparently he didn’t either because not once was this question brought up. That’s where my .tax files were.

So I finished my 2019 taxes but I have no 5 year history. The tax advisor said once I found my .tax files and put them in the Turbo Tax folder, (which I did) than reopen my 2019 file, the info should flow in and the form should auto populate. Of course it didn’t.

What can I try next to get this 5 year history report to bring in the past history? I don’t want to redo my 2019 taxes naturally.

Thank you,

Alex

[rjs]

The Tax History Report does not collect the information from your .tax files for the last 5 years. The history information is carried forward from year to year, as long as you transfer information from the prior year when you start your new tax return each year. If you had transferred information from your 2018 tax return when you started your 2019 tax return, all the history information would have been included.

There is nothing you can do now to have TurboTax automatically fill in the Tax History Report, other than starting your 2019 tax return over again, which you don't want to do. But if you have your Tax History Report from last year, you can open this year's Tax History Report in forms mode and manually enter the information for the past four years. Then it will carry forward to future years as long as you transfer information from the prior year when you start your tax return every year.

[drozd1]

Thank you very much! Good idea. I will do just that and now I have learned a lesson about one of the differences between online and desktop versions. Make sure I download the .tax file when I'm done.

Thanks again!