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Update: STILL DO NOT HAVE MY TAXES FILED! (But there's progress)
Got off the phone with their IT support who was knowledgeable about the underlying issue. She confirmed my suspicion that TurboTax sends info from their servers to an AWS instance on the backend to generate the forms and she stated that the TurboTax Online web-app will struggle with 500+ transactions (DING DING! I was right!) So she had me remove the transactions and try to generate a .tax file where I could then download and redo my taxes through a locally installed application (which they had to send me a specific code in order to download/install). She had me go through a couple of steps but I'm still having troubles even generating a .tax file for 2021. I had already spent 2 hours on the phone, so I had to step off, so we couldn't go any further. But, she said I should be able to start from scratch and get them actually generated through the locally installed app since it doesn't involve AWS anyways.
The take-away here is that TurboTax needs to be up-front about how many transactions they can handle <500 (or scale up the AWS instance if the account has lots of transactions)
If they do not address this issue immediately, I bet in the next coming weeks (as the deadline rolls closer) they're going to get a HUGE inflow of other apes/retards young investors that spent the pandemic day-trading complaining and complaining to all their friends how TurboTax cannot handle their taxes!
Oh man, progress! Thank god you were able to connect with someone who knows about the issue. That’s at least some relief and validation that you’re not losing your mind.
And you totally called it! Not even sure how you connected the dots for the AWS bit but good work. Definitely agree that their customer service is about to have a bad time with the influx of crypto nerds trying to file before the deadline. Hopefully, but I know they’re not, they’re taking measures to communicate with their employees about the issue and taking steps to resolve it.
Hopefully our threads and messages will provide at least some insight to those who stumble across this in the future when they run into this same issue. It’s not much but it’s better than the endless loop of “clear your cookies and cache, try a new browser” etc. etc.
Glad you at least made some progress today though. Almost there!
The fact that TurboTax uses AWS is apparent in the URL. Also most of the internet uses AWS anyways--I also work with tech and use AWS often. When I send a process to AWS and it hits something like memory error the process will just die. Given TurboTax is failing to generate the tax forms when there's a high number of transactions, I'm fairly certain the TurboTax software is hitting a memory limit. (This is more or less confirmed by the IT person I was speaking with who said the web-app cannot handle more than 500 transactions).
I'm going to try to confirm this theory by watching the memory usage when I try to generate my tax forms on the locally installed application, since this shouldn't be using AWS at all and use my local compute resources. If all goes well with using the locally installed app, then I'm right and TurboTax needs to give us "power" users the ability to download the software to generate our tax forms locally. If I'm wrong about the memory issue then the TurboTax software itself may just be messing up the imports somewhere and I need to double check every single line manually. In either case, I'll report back what I find. But I REALLY should not have to be jumping through this many hoops myself (as a paying customer) to figure out problems with their software.
you are spot on
the high level of transactions on 1099 B is creating the issue
i also posted on the other forum
Once you change it to a summary from individual transactions everything works
Hey @jagg1 How did you switch to summary form instead of individual transactions?
You may elect to report summary information. Your brokerage statements should include a summary of your transactions, grouped by sales category, for example, Box A short-term covered or Box D long-term covered. You will enter the summary info instead of each individual transaction.
If you choose the option to enter a summary instead of entering each sale, The IRS requires that you mail a copy of the brokerage statement listing the individual sales.
If you e-file, TurboTax will produce an IRS Form 8453. You print the IRS Form 8453 and attach the brokerage statement(s) to it.
If you file by mail, attach the statement(s) to the back of your tax return, after all the forms and schedules.
In either case, click the mailing instructions link in the message at the bottom of the TurboTax page and follow the instructions that it displays.
So based on the information in this thread, would the best course of action be to use the downloaded app instead of the online version? I'm in a similar situation where the account is locked for the same reason, despite using the consolidated import. Instead of spending time on the phone I'd rather just jump into the local app and start again. Otherwise, this would end my 20 years run with turbotax.
The best and quickest way is to delete the transactions and put in a summary instead.
I used a summary from the start which only has 80 lines. For me, it crashed on miscellaneous income from staking rewards. The last entry caused the system to choke and now I'm stuck on the oops connection error.
@TatTBTX The summary of transactions shouldn't have 80 lines - it should have one for each type of trade that you did. Your transaction summary should be at the front of your 1099-B or you'll have to go through and pick out the total amount for each type of transaction and then enter that.
I'm doing a 8949. regarding the summary of 80 lines, vs 821 for actual transactions. The 1099-B only has 6 entries, but the large value of one threw the system into a fit and I haven't been able to recover it since.
Hi ya'll, just wanted to follow up. I was able to generate my tax forms through the locally installed turbotax (desktop) app (as expected) It is able to handle thousands of transactions, although it is a bit slow. I did run into issues with not being able to link my API keys for cointracker to get my crypto transactions in. So I ended up just doing a summary for that set in particular.
Also happened to me and it turned out another person had fraudulently already filed under my name and was seeking a huge refund. I immediately contacted all appropriate authorities plus Turbo Tax who admitted a different address was given for the fraudulent return. I now receive a security pin number from the IRS each year to add to my returns.
How many did you have?
With an export form TaxBit of 3600 transactions, also the Desktop version fails (both on MAC and Windows).
How do you do the summary? Who does it means "for each type fo transaction", aren't there only short and long term ones?
Is it really required to mail the 8949 with all the transactions? One of the Turbotax advisors said to me that it is not necessary..
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