RE: Homebuyer Credit, I choose "yes, but its no longer my main home" but TT automatically keeps defaulting to "no". I got a rejection email and saw it switched to "no."

[realwilde]

Is there a way to select "Yes, but it's no longer my main home", and have TurboTax not switch back to "No, I didn't receive the homebuyer credit"?

[JamesG1]

I assume that you are referring to the 2008 Homebuyer Credit Repayment found at Federal / Deductions & Credits / Your Home.

Are you continuing to make payments in repayment of the credit?  If so, you should select Yes, and the home we received the credit for was still our main home on January 1, 2022.

However, if you selected Yes, but the home we received the credit for stopped being our main home on or before December 1, 2021, the software defaults to No, we never got this credit because the software presumes that the Homebuyer Credit repayment was resolved on the December 31 2021 or prior Federal tax return.

This TurboTax help explains

If you sell or stop using the home as your principal residence, the repayment of the credit is accelerated. In this case, you must increase your repayment in the year of sale or in the year that you stop using it as your primary residence. 

@realwilde 

[realwilde]

Thanks JamesG1!

We sold our home in late 2020. I don't remember TurboTax saying anything about accelerating the loan repayment. If it had, the money would have come out of our refund in spring 2021.

Now, my federal return was rejected by the IRS due to the default to "no".

I can't select "yes. It's still my home", because that's false. 

So,  i select "yes, but we stopped using the house", which is true. Then it defaults to"no", which triggers a rejection by the IRS.

So I don't know what to do. 

[RobertB4444]

In order to continue the repayment then you need to select "Yes, it's still my main home" and make the payment.  Even though it's not your main home anymore.

The alternative is to go back to 2020 where you sold the home and amend that return to pay back the balance of the Homebuyer Credit with that return.  Then, once that has been processed, the IRS will accept this return because it will no longer be looking for the annual repayment.

@realwilde