Import from Financial Institution -- Why does it force me to "Delete Old Data" when importing Spouse's Tax Forms?

[aysoref]

@drcox "TT does not seem to be taking into account the possible customer pain of imperfect imports that require even minor clean-up.  This wasted time adds up."

Indeed. But it is even more basic than that.

1 - TT users after age 65 are required to pull part of their IRAs out each year, this is called RMD or Required Minimum Distributions. They can use part of that RMD for charitable distributions (look up QCD). For several good reasons, neither the RMD amount, nor the QCD amounts from that IRA are shown in the 1099-R data downloaded from the financial institution. Bottom line result = I have to enter these amounts manually, which I happily do.  The very next TT data import from the same financial institution WIPES OUT what I entered. This is bug #1.

2 - the import user interface logs me into the financial institution, then shows me a list of accounts and their corresponding available forms. It lets me select the ones I want to download and clear the ones I do not want to download. It then proceeds to delete the ones I cleared [bug #2] and forcefully overwrite the ones I selected [bug #3].

Quite unbelievable that we all have to repeat explaining this obviously wrong behavior to TT personnel.

[taxnovice]

I do not see bug #3 as an issue because you are choosing to download the same statement that you had downloaded previously presumably because there were some changes in it. Hence it needs to write over what it imported before - the message is clear from TT. wait until all forms are ready from your financial institution. Import in one go and then make the necessary changes and never import again.

they just don't have the granularity for dealing with multiple imports. In previous years it was at the level of financial institution meaning all second attempts will wipe out everything previously imported from that institution. But this year they have the granularity at the account level - meaning it only overwrites the forms for that one account you are attempting again. They probably will figure out (next year) how to increase the granularity to the form level

[drcox]

I'd say they already have this granularity to some extent.  When importing from Chase, I'm presented with a long checklist of all my documents that are ready for import.  I can choose to uncheck any documents that I don't want to import.  In my case, I would like to choose to uncheck (and thus skip import) of all the documents that I have *already* imported.  The interface allows this, but then proceeds to delete ALL the data before inputting only the remaining checked documents.   

If it's going to allow import of a partial set of documents from Chase, it shouldn't first require me to have a "clean slate" 

[aysoref]

@taxnovice With respect, let me disagree to parts of your view. 

"wait until all forms are ready from your financial institution. Import in one go and then make the necessary changes and never import again." - this is exactly the problem. I want to prepare as much as I can of my tax forms and enter all relevant manual adjustments BEFORE the financial institution releases the last form or two. It is NOT up to TT to tell me when to do what. It IS up to TT to let me import and data I want, any time I want AND NOT REMOVE my previous work.

Also, "But this year they have the granularity at the account level - meaning it only overwrites the forms for that one account you are attempting again."  - let us use consistent terminology. I have an account at a financial institution. My account shows a set of tax forms, some of which are available and I download first, some of which are only available later. I want TT to let me download the first set of tax forms, make some manual changes and save them. I then expect TT to let me download the later set of tax forms WITHOUT REMOVING OR FORCEFULLY OVERWRITING the tax forms I already completed.

Peace

[marie2023]

Please advise as to whether anyone has had success uploading 1099 supplemental statements from Merrill Lynch without deleting previous imports. It is now late in March and this issue is horrific! The software issue everyone has clearly denoted as a flaw appears to remain unreslved. TT please advise as to when this will be fixed!

[aysoref]

Still trying to make progress, I found a way to raise Intuit awareness. I filled out an online form sending information to the "Office of the [Intuit] president", listing our collective plight. I must say the response has been outstanding. Within one hour, I received a call from a TurboTax higher level person who - very nicely, politely , positive and helpful - listened to our collective troubles. Not only that, but she committed to elevate the issue to the relevant & appropriate personnel. I believe that such inquiries, coming from the office of the president, do indeed have an effect [a.k.a. light a fire...]. I am now more optimistic about a true resolution.

Below I copied the first response, for this forum's awareness and - hopefully - optimism. I plan to share progress messages I receive, unless Intuit proactively does that.

================ Office of the president message ==============

Hello Gershon,

It was a pleasure speaking with you earlier today. I am reaching out on behalf of Intuit’s Office of the President to formally recap our discussion regarding the data challenges you’ve encountered with TurboTax Premier. I want to sincerely thank you for sharing your technical expertise and for the patience you’ve shown while navigating this frustration. As a retired software engineer, your detailed breakdown of the "clean slate" behavior—where the software inadvertently wipes previously imported and manually adjusted data during phased downloads—is incredibly helpful. I have taken note of the community forum threads you mentioned and understand that this is a critical issue affecting many users during this busy tax season.

Regarding our next steps, I have officially initiated a high-priority internal review ticket with our development team. I have also documented your willingness to provide a sanitized diagnostic token should our engineers require a live environment to further investigate the root cause. While our developers typically work behind the scenes and do not make outbound calls, please rest assured that a specialized team is now monitoring your case to ensure it receives the attention it warrants. We are committed to getting to the bottom of this so that you, and all our customers, can file with confidence.

As we agreed, I have scheduled a follow-up call with you for this coming Monday, March 23, 2026, at 8:30 AM Central Time to provide you with a status update. In the meantime, if any urgent questions arise or if our team requires further information, I will reach out to you via email. We truly value your feedback and your loyalty to Intuit, and I look forward to speaking with you again soon to move toward a resolution.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can respond to this email and we will respond to your inquiry.

Looking forward to speaking with you soon.

Warm regards,

Latanya W.
TurboTax Customer Care

[MRies129]

@taxnovice Waiting until all of the forms are ready and only import once sounds great. But do you know why it doesn't work? Because every 2-3 years one of my 1099's has an error, and I need an amended 1099 imported so my taxes are correct. It is absurd that this not uncommon situation is not handled better.

[marie2023]

Good morning, I appreciate your update on this issue, do you have any updates that you can share regarding resolution timeframe? Thanks so much.

[aysoref]

@marie2023 For some mysterious reason, my latest post on this topic does not appear here.  Was it removed by someone? Forum censorship ? Don't know but here it is again, for reference. In a nutshell, it seems the relevant TurboTax engineering team is informing The Office of The [Intuit] President, and all of us that the software behaves exactly as designed / as implemented (duh...), that this behaviour is intentional and they have no plan or intent to change it or make it more intelligent / user friendly.  I am thoroughly disappointed, especially as a veteran software engineer, I know for sure it can be improved, given correct management directives.  Here FYI is the - second - Intuit email I received.

============================

Hello Gershon,

I am reaching out to you on behalf of Intuit’s Office of the President to provide an update regarding the technical inquiry we have been conducting. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to catch you this morning to discuss our findings.

I want to start by thanking you again for your collaboration and for providing the diagnostic data that allowed our development team to take a deeper look into the behavior you described. Our developers were able to successfully replicate the experience you shared; however, after a thorough review of the system architecture, they have confirmed that the product is behaving exactly as designed.

While I understand this behavior can be frustrating, it is an intentional product feature rather than a technical bug. This specific logic was implemented as a safeguard to avoid duplicate submissions, which historically caused much more significant data integrity issues for our users. Because this safeguard is vital to the stability of the import process, there are no plans to change this functionality for the foreseeable future.

I want to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused or may continue to cause you. We truly value the technical perspective you provided throughout this process, and your feedback has been documented for our product teams to consider for future iterations.

Since we have concluded our investigation into these concerns, we will be closing your case at this time. If you have any other questions or concerns, visit the Intuit support website. We have resources, frequently asked questions, and experts standing by to help.

Thank you for being an Intuit customer.

Warm regards,

[taxnovice]

if they want to safeguard data integrity that is fine. But then they need to be consistent with this implementation. Specifically they should not provide check boxes after import showing all the forms they found for that account. By providing check boxes, they are creating an illusion that you can bypass import of a form by unchecking the box (thereby preserving what you imported before). if they want to stick with current implementation, then they should just list all the forms they found for that particular user/account without checkboxes and then let the user know that all these forms (accounts) will be overwritten

[taxnovice]

thinking through this some more, I realize that the changes I recommended will also not work as sometimes you have a joint account with son/daughter and you may not want to import that form (as they are doing their own taxes) and hence you want to be able to exclude some forms during import.

I guess they had more problems in the past with duplicate import and enough people must have given strong feedback on that issue, that they implemented this new feature where it wipes out previous imports.

I guess we need to just suck it up and work with the constraints it has

[drcox]

"I guess we need to just suck it up and work with the constraints it has"

Maybe this year.  Voting with my wallet next year and ditching TurboTax.

There is an intelligent UX here that can strike a balance.  TT is already based on asking a thousand questions... what's wrong with a few more?  "You already imported data for account 123... do you want to overwrite it?"

Or maybe we need "TurboTax Ultimate Supreme Edition" in which we pay more for the tool to get out of our way.  (Did I just invent the CPA?)

[marie2023]

Aysoref, I greatly appreciate you re-posting this update and all your efforts to resolve this issue with TT.

This is a cop-out by TT, they simply need to change this statement to a question "do you want to over-write your existing import data or add as supplemental data?" as they had in previous years.  It is on the user (as always) to reply to the question as appropriate to their specific needs.  This would support those of us who receive supplemental tax forms every single year.

This year I spent hours editing imported data pertaining to gains/losses on inherited investments.  To not lose this data my only options now are to spend additional hours keying in the minutia of text contained in the new supplemental statement or mail in a copy of my actual supplemental statement to the IRS.  The latter option defeats the whole purpose and security of e-filing.

TT is likely unwilling to change their software for this obvious defect since it is so close to tax deadline.  I am curious if any of the other TT products (I am using the desktop deluxe version) can handle this issue properly this year. I would be willing to upgrade if I knew that it would help resolve the issue.  

I sincerely hope that TT reconsiders their position on this topic for next year and modifies their code appropriately, otherwise I will need to look for new tax software after years of being a dedicated TT user.

Again, appreciate your efforts on this.

[aysoref]

@drcox @taxnovice We all seem forced to dance around this counter-intuitive [dare I say nonsensical ?] TurboTax behaviour.  Every other software package is nice enough to the user and helps him/her avoid mistakes. The TurboTax data import behaviour I expect is along the same lines:

1 - have a check box next to each tax form / account seen at my financial institution;  done already

2 - let me check / select or uncheck / clear each box individually;  done already

3 - import ONLY the tax forms I selected;   to be done

4 - IF an imported tax form already exists in my data file, ASK ME FOR PERMISSION to overwrite it; if no permission given, leave it as is;   to be done

Above all, warn me about possible inconsistencies, but TRUST ME to know what I am doing. This would be correct, friendly and logical software behavior.

[NotSoTurbo]

I agree I also will vote with my wallet next year too. I personally would pay more to get a product that does not generate a massive amount of extra work like this "TT feature" has for me this year.

How did I come to this conclusion:

1) This issue was brought to TT attention over 2 months ago.  Throughout this period several employee responses suggested that the issue was how the customers were not clearing cache, closing sessions with the financial websites, etc. In other words, it was assumed that the customer was causing the problem before fully investigating the problem. 

2) It took a customer, not an TT employee to finally disclose the fact that TT considers this time consuming issue for the customer a is by design.

3) This is the second TT issue that impacted my tax preparation. The other one was considered a feature of the product to find possible tax benefits even though it was clearly proven to be a defect in the product. In that issue TT employees also pushed back providing possible resolutions that suggested it was a customer generated problem. 

In reference to this issue (Import from Financial Institution...) I REALLY, REALLY. REALLY hope that the process of deleting previously imported data was NOT 'by design", because that would be a clear indication that TT is not thinking about providing tax prep software that truly is designed with the customer in mind.