@Coker wrote:
My 2020 return has been processed. I have the printed transcripts in my hand. As for "If you used the Non-Filers tool in 2021 to register for an advance Child Tax Credit payment or third Economic Impact Payment in 2021, enter $1 as your prior year AGI. " I have done neither of the situations you have suggested. Fact is, this is the second year this has happened to me. For tax year 2019 I screwed around with Turbo Tax long enough to be late. It cost me over $800.00 dollars in late fees. I ultimately printed out the tax form that Turbotax generated (ver batim) and mailed it in. It was accepted. I am now trying to get my penalty and interest refunded. Bottom line I came into this year expecting an issue and there it was. So, I tried both senarios My agi=spouse agi=rejection. My agi (not equal) to spouses (spouses =0) = rejected by IRS. This is an issue Turbotax must fix. I am not alone in this. The number of query's on the web is incalculable.
Sorry you had trouble. That happens to a lot of folks especially this year because of long delays at the IRS last year. TurboTax does not do the AGI matching. It is the IRS that rejected your efile attempts, not TurboTax.
You mentioned 2019 and 2020 above, so I can't tell with certainty if you already mailed your 2021 return or not. But if you haven't, there is another possible way to try to efile that I'll mention below. If you already mailed, then the following will be moot.
If the 2020 return was a joint return, the first attempt should be using the same total 2020 AGI for both filers.
You did that, but I don't know what rejection error code you received. If it said the "spouse" AGI was wrong, then I would have tried with total AGI for the primary filer and an AGI of 0 for the secondary filer. It sounds like you tried both of those without success.
At that point, the following is what I would have then suggested. There's another scenario you didn't mention trying, and that would have been to use an AGI of 0 for both of you. Maybe you already tried that. I don't know; it wasn't mentioned above. You only mentioned you tried 2 things. If you haven't yet mailed the return, I'd try another efile attempt using a 2020 AGI of 0 for both of you.
The transcript is not necessarily helpful in knowing who has to use an AGI of 0 or not. The IRS system uses its efile database to match the returns. It depends on when the IRS actually processed the return, and the critical date each year has typically been that the return has to have been processed by the end of November. Those who returns weren't finished processing by the end of November are very commonly not in the IRS efile database. And even in some cases for returns finished processing prior to then, sometimes for some unexplained reason the IRS efile database doesn't always match But in general, folks whose 2020 returns were not finished processing by the end of November 2021 are the main ones who have to use an AGI of 0, even if it currently shows in their transcript. In any case, before giving up I would always try all three possibilities, the 2 you already tried and a third attempt using an AGI of 0 for both of you. Again, I realize it's moot now if you already mailed the return.
