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Vanessa A
Employee Tax Expert

IHSS Tax Exempt - Can't E-file with W2 having $0 in Box 1

Do not enter anything in box 1 if you do not have anything in box 1. The steps I posted above are the best way to do this with the 2024 TurboTax product. The IRS made changes and added box 12 code II, TurboTax also added in the spot in the Less Common income which properly handles all of the W-2 forms that do not have an amount in box 1. 

 

Follow these steps to enter your IHSS payments AFTER deleting your W-2 by clicking the trashcan in the summary page next to the W-2:

  1. Select income
  2. Miscellaneous Income which is under Less Common Income
  3. Other Income Not already reported on a Form W-2 or Form 1099
  4. Select Yes to did you receive any other wages
  5. Continue to the box that asks for your Medicaid Waiver payments
  6. You will be asked about using this income for the Earned Income Credit
  7. After you do this, if you select yes, you will need to visit the credits and deduction section to answer the Earned Income Credit questions.
  8. Continue through to file your return

This should allow you to e-file

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IHSS Tax Exempt - Can't E-file with W2 having $0 in Box 1

Vanessa's post above works and is correct  IF you WANT to include your Medicaid waiver payments such as for purposes of qualifying for EIC.  However, for most people, including this income may likely put you over the EIC limit if your spouse already has modest W2 income.

As I understand it, you do not *HAVE* to include this income, thus since your Box 1 wages show 0.00, you can ignore adding this.  HOWEVER, you likely may have had state income tax withheld and you DO want to include that, so go to Deductions & Credits, scroll down to Other Income Taxes, then add Withholding not already entered on a W-2.

 

My wife is an IHSS caregiver in Colorado for our daughter; it just so happens that this year we do not qualify for EIC anyways due to investment income being over the $11600 limit, thus we are choosing to include her income this time (per Vanessa's instructions) because it helps increase the CTC refund for us a couple hundred bucks.  In a normal year if our investment income was lower, then we would not include my wife's waiver payments so that we could qualify for EIC based solely on my income.

 

The IRS has a Q&A.  You do not have to include your waiver wages, but you can if you want to (to qualify for credits as they say), and if you do, you must include all of it, not just part of it.   https://www.irs.gov/individuals/certain-medicaid-waiver-payments-may-be-excludable-from-income

 

You will be able to efile your federal return via turbotax this way.  However, at least in Colorado where we are, we are unable to efile the state return because we have state income tax withheld which we reported as already being withheld even though there wasn't w2 income attached to it, thus we mail the state return every year.

IHSS Tax Exempt - Can't E-file with W2 having $0 in Box 1

@Jaymmo, sorry I missed your questions here...  I just put $1 in box 1 and made no other changes to the quantities in the other boxes.

 

An hour ago I e-Filed both Federal and CA State and my Federal return is already showing Accepted.  So the IRS doesn't care about what is essentially a rounding variance.  And since CA just receives a copy of my filed Federal return then there should be no reason for them to care either.  EDIT: Fifteen minutes after my post here my CA return has been Accepted as well.

 

I also saved PDF versions both for my own Records and the forms required for Filing.  That Filing PDF shows no evidence of individual W-2 information.  So the supposed reason offered by TurboTax as to why an entered W-2 requires something other than $0 in box 1 -- "this is required by IRS regulations" -- seems pretty weak to me.

 

I am now answering the post-filing questionnaire in TurboTax "How likely are you to recommend TurboTax to a friend?".  I will mention this issue specifically among other things (like the lack of non-ambiguous KB articles for issues like this, the lack of a published Revision History for changes to the Desktop app, etc.).  For now TurboTax gets 7 stars from me but that may change next year if they can improve in these areas.

caseyrobnson
Returning Member

IHSS Tax Exempt - Can't E-file with W2 having $0 in Box 1

which tax product to use for:

1) qualified disaster area ( Lahaina fire ) to amend a 2nd time my 2023 tax to include casualty losses and net operating loss to carry forward into 2024.

2) 2nd amendment to 2023 done with free tax that didn't include NOL to carry forward... do I need to use a turbotax product for 2023 and if so do I include the entire 1040 work up along with 1040x

3) what product to use online for 2024 to include stocks and rental home sale?

 

Thank you! 

Also I am blocked everywhere I turn on turbotax to talk to a live person who could possibly answer these Q's faster and easier ... how do I access these live people???? 

Aloha and thanks again 

Casey

BrittanyS
Expert Alumni

IHSS Tax Exempt - Can't E-file with W2 having $0 in Box 1

I see Amy answered your question regarding your casualty loss and amendment.  I'm sorry for your loss.  I can not imagine what you went through.  For your question regarding stock sales and rental home sales, you will need TurboTax Premier.  However, if you started with a lower version of TurboTax and need to upgrade, TurboTax will notify you that the information you are entering requires an upgrade.  For your issue with reaching a live agent, are you being blocked in the software from the live agent chat or are you having issues with the phone service?  

 

@caseyrobnson 

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