Concerns about the loss of my Turbo Tax 2023 tax return on my computer because I own rentals

[cottagecharm11]

I was not aware that there is a well know issue, with many complaints here in the community, about updating Turbo Tax. I just learned the hard way about this when I had an entire saved tax return deleted off of my turbo tax software on my computer. This is how it happened, I opened Turbo Tax 2023 and up popped "Checking for updates", then I installed the updates that were found. I had already e-filed the 2023 return in 2024 that was deleted. All I was trying to do was amend my 2023 taxes! I searched for the software file that was deleted, which is  .tax2023, and it is gone. I do have the .pdf version saved and also a printed copy.  I was using the Costco downloaded version of Premier because I own rentals. Now I have lost the saved depreciation information in the software for 2023.  Fortunately, I had already imported the 2023 information to do my 2024 taxes.

I am concerned if this will affect me in the future when we go to sell these rentals since we no longer have the information for the 2023 tax year? Will I be able to trust the Turbo Tax calculations in the future, or will they be wrong?

[Mike9241]

you should check to see if yo still have the 2023 tax file but it is hidden because it starts with a "~"

to check (windows os) go to your c:\users\users name\documents\turbotax folder to see if there is a file ~xxxxxxxx.tax2023. that's the backup file the desktop is supposed to create whenever the tax file is open. 

you can double-click on it with your mouse to open it. compare to pdf to make sure its the same. then save irt without the tilde so then the data will transfer to 2024 (when first starting to do 2024. 

[rjs]

You have not lost any information. The depreciation information is carried forward cumulatively from year to year. All of the information is in the .tax20yy data file, not "in the software." All of your past depreciation is in the .tax2024 file. You no longer need the .tax2023 file. When you sell a property you will only need the data file for the most recent year prior to the sale. The TurboTax calculations in the future will be correct as long as you have the most recent data file.

When you use the desktop TurboTax software, you are responsible for maintaining backups of your tax return data files (the .tax20yy files). You should have backup copies on removable media, such as a flash drive or portable hard drive, or in cloud storage. There are many reasons that a file could be corrupted or lost, including software failures or failures of various parts of your computer hardware. The solution should always be to retrieve the file from your most recent backup.

[SteamTrain]

You should also check any Cloud storage drives you have...like DropBox or OneDrive.

A number of folks who thought the update removed their files....found them later on their cloud storage drive.