Best way to clone an unfiled tax return

[untuit]

I'd like to compute taxes two different ways for 2022 and then file the the one that seems best. One time I was able to copy a ttax file, pre-filing, and then run it on another pc, but the process was somewhat difficult and I'm not sure I can reproduce the steps successfully. Ideally I'd like to keep the cloned tax return on the same machine. There must be writeups for how to do this but I can't find it. Can anyone point me to a resource or tell me how to clone a return?

[Mike9241]

you would need a thumb/flash drive. then easiest would be to open the file and then "save as" and save to that drive - rename if you want but not the.tax2022 part.

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another option. go to c:\windows\users\"users name"\documnets\turbotax folder. there you should see the file. click on it with the mouse and use the copy function to paste it to the thumb/flash drive. 

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another option.  create an email to yourself add the file as an attachment and send it to your e-mail account. then open your email account on the other computer and then download it. 

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all options require that the app be installed oin the computer your using.

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there is no requirement to use a second computer when you are using the desktop app. just save on the same computer but use save as to change the name like "version2". with unique names there is no limit to the number of versions you can save on any computer subject to disk space limits.  

[untuit]

Thanks for the reply.

Why would a thumbdrive need to be involved in several of the paths you outline?

What I recall of my own previous experiment with this was that copying the file with a different name was easy of course, but there was no way to open that file in ttax. I could only start a new return. I think I copied the renamed file to another pc that has ttax 2022 on it, and then somehow managed to open it. Maybe I let ttax create a new return, closed that return, and then tossed the file it'd just created, and renamed my 'wanted' copy to the name of the file ttax had just created, which I'd just deleted. Maybe that would have worked on pc #1?

[JohnH1 · Accepted solution]

I do this all the time. Simply make a copy of the file with a unique name (add a number or the word "test") and edit that file in Turbo Tax by double clicking it.

[untuit]

Wow, that's simple, thank you!