Form 8889 from last year 2022 is possibly wrong

[derekchang109]

looking back at my form 8889 from last yr (2022) I see that I have

line 2 - $2,661

line 9 - $3,369

looking at my W2 box 12 code W, it shows 3369.24 which matches line 9

since I contributed to my HSA through an employer, shouldn't line 2 be blank?

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

Yes, if all of your contributions were through your employer, line 2 should be blank.  Line 2 having $2,661 indicates that you mistakenly entered this amount as a personal contribution not made through your employer.  If you had family HSA coverage that results in the total of $6,030 not being an excess contribution, it might not be necessary to amend your 2022 tax return to make the correction, but if you had self-only coverage and TurboTax treated a portion of this as an excess contribution on Form 5329, you must amend your 2022 tax return to correct the Forms 8889 and 5329.  You'll have to prepare the corrected Form 5329 outside of TurboTax to show zeros in Part VII where it previously showed nonzero amounts because TurboTax will simply delete the entries in Part VII of Form 5329 (removing the form entirely if there is no other reason for Form 5329 to have been in your tax return) rather than showing a correction to the form.  You should then use your amended tax file for transferring in to begin your 2023 tax return.

[derekchang109]

Thanks for the reply! this makes sense, I saw there is an option to amend my 2022 tax return (I filed through TurboTax last year) I am trying to go through this route but it seems like they want me to Mail the amended return rather than efile it. I assume if I efiled it, it would adjust the forms for my 2023 return. With that being said, is there a way I can reference the amended value or do I need to go through the mailing process (which may take up to 16 weeks...)

[dmertz]

Even if you use TurboTax to prepare the amendment, if you must amend Form 5329 to remove a penalty, you have no choice but to mail the amendment so that you can include the corrected From 5329 prepared outside of TurboTax.  If no correction to Form 5329 is needed, an amendment to 2022 won't have any effect on your 2023 tax return.