return rejected, your fault?

[BanjoBennyBoy]

I have previously listed both my children as my dependents because they are. But for the purposes of claiming head of household, I claim my daughter and my ex-wife claims my son.

This year I selected my son as "Not a dependent" - it was there when I checked why it was rejected. But apparently the government rejected the form because turbotax must have listed him as a dependent, even though I explicitly stated "not a dependent"

Why do you have the "not a dependent" option if you don't adjust the income tax return accordingly? I'm counting on you to be the experts. 

There were other things very wrong with your web-based program. It kept asking me to change "misc expenses" for my consulting business but I would enter 0 or $0 and nothing happened. I tried entering 999999 and it took that: suddenly my income was negative $940,000! That allowed me to get to the page where I could select business expenses. But being stuck on a page where it said "enter expense" with a box to put it in, but then nothing would happen, cost me a ton of time. At the very least, it should have sent me back to the page where expenses were entered, not given me a box to enter a number in that didn't work.  Pretty shoddy and it makes me wonder if maybe you purposely have bugs inyour program so people will accept the "professional help" option out of desperation. Now I'm wondering if I should look for another method to prepare my taxes.  

[xmasbaby0]

For one thing, if you did not mean to claim your son as a dependent in any way--even for the child tax credit--then he should not have been listed on your return at all.  So that may have led to the problem.   If you are still trying to e-file the rejected return during the five day grace period, remove your son from the MY INFO section where you listed dependents.

TurboTax provides do-it-yourself tax software.  TurboTax guarantees the calculations done by its software.   The information entered into that software is data entered by you, the user.   TurboTax cannot and does not check that information against any outside sources, so TT cannot know if you entered your information completely or correctly.   It is up to you to enter all of your information correctly and completely, and to check your tax return before you file it.  If you forget to enter some income, or enter it incorrectly, enter it in the wrong place, etc. then you may end up owing additional tax to the IRS and/or state.  TurboTax does not pay the additional tax you owe.   If TurboTax’s calculations were incorrect, and you owe penalties and/or interest, then TT will pay the penalties and interest.  The tax due is always owed by you, and must be paid by you.

If you need to enter a claim for the accuracy guarantee:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/intuit-account-billing/submit-claim-turb...

[xmasbaby0]

@BanjoBennyBoy You mentioned "for the purposes of filing head of household" but have not told us who the children live with.   Which parent has been the custodial parent?   

Are you the custodial parent?  Do you have an agreement with the other parent to allow the other parent to claim them--due to divorce or that you live apart and share custody?  Did one of you sign a Form 8332?

If there is a signed 8332 then the custodial parent retains the right to file as Head of Household, get earned income credit and the childcare credit.  The non-custodial parent gets the child tax credit for children under the age of 17.

As far as the IRS is concerned, the custodial parent is the one with whom the child spent the most nights during the tax year--at least 183 nights.

Am I Head of Household?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1894553-do-i-qualify-for-head-of-household

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2900097-what-is-a-qualifying-person-for-head-of-household

If you qualify as Head of Household, when you enter your marital status (single or married filing separately) into MyInfo, and then enter your qualifying dependent, TurboTax will offer HOH as your filing status.

[Opus 17]

If a child lives in your home more than half the nights of the year, they are a qualifying person for HOH and they are automatically your dependent.  You can release the dependent to the other parent if you give them a signed release form 8332, but they are still a qualifying person for HOH, and can never be a qualifying person for HOH for the other parent, even if you release the dependent claim.  That's what the "not a dependent" status is all about.

You should be answering, "yes the child lives with me" and "yes, I will give the other parent a form 8332."  The other parent should be answering, "no, the child does not live with me" and "yes, the other parent will be giving me a form 8332."   In that case, the child can be listed on both returns and not cause any conflicts with the IRS.

It's possible the error is caused by your ex claiming your child as if your child lived with them, instead of using the release.   That's on your ex, not Turbotax.  As long as you prepared your return with the correct information, you can print and file by mail since e-filing is blocked.  If ex claimed the child the wrong way, both of you will get a letter from the IRS and you will need to explain the situation.