In doing taxes for a surviving spouse situation, turbo tax does not ask for the deceased spouse's signature PIN on the joint return. However, it is rejected by the IRS because the pin is not there and/or the AGI is not there.
What's wrong and how to get taxes efiled?
Because the social security administration blocks the SSNs of deceased persons to prevent fraud, it is almost always impossible to e-file a tax return that includes a deceased spouse. Print your return and file by mail. Don't forget to also print and mail your state return.
Thank you, it did answer my question.
I wish that Turbotax would have given me a warning message before I tried to efile and paid the fee.
The only time you pay a separate fee for e-filing is when e-filing a state tax return using Turbotax Desktop version installed on your own Mac or PC. In this case, you can call customer service for a refund.
In all other cases (Federal return with desktop version, and both Federal and State versions with Turbotax Online) e-filing is included in the base fee for tax prep and you weren't charged extra to e-file.
How do I enter deceased wife's pin number so i can satisfy irs
Yes, it will be rejected without the pin. Below is how to enter your spouse's pin. Let us know if you need more help.
Here is how to enter your 6 digit IP PIN:
@bobmathis3 wrote:
How do I enter deceased wife's pin number so i can satisfy irs
Which PIN? There is a 5 digit e-filing PIN and a 6 digit identity theft or IP-PIN.
If you can't e-file with a deceased spouse, I suspect the real cause is the the social security administration has frozen her SSN. If this is the case you will never successfully e-file and need to print your return, sign it, and mail it in. (You also sign your name in the spot for your spouse and write "personal representative".)
So I pay for TurboTax, which includes Efile, and I cannot efile with deceased spouse, and I cannot efile Federal?
Devalued purchase, not right!!!!!!!!
@gmanhunter22 wrote:
So I pay for TurboTax, which includes Efile, and I cannot efile with deceased spouse, and I cannot efile Federal?
Devalued purchase, not right!!!!!!!!
First, Turbotax can never guarantee that any taxpayer will be able to e-file, that's beyond their control.
Second, with Turbotax online, the preparation fees include e-filing. If you can't e-file, there are no partial refunds. Filing by mail will only delay your refund by an extra 1-2 weeks, (assuming the IRS does not hold your return for extra processing anyway to make sure you aren't the victim of fraud related to your spouse.) With Turbotax desktop, you might have paid an extra state e-filing fee, you can contact customer support for a refund of that fee.
Third, other reports have started to give us a clue that there might be a bug in turbotax separate from the IRS blocking of deceased SSNs. If you want to help, you can send us a diagnostic file for testing.
1. Click into your return.
2. Click Online and select "Send Tax File to Agent".
3. This will generate a message that a diagnostic copy will be created. Click on OK, the tax file gets sanitized and transmitted to us.
4. Please post the Token Number that was generated onto a response here.
Me and most customers purchase Turbotax with the expectation to EFile.
Misleading marketing!!!!!!!!!!
@gmanhunter22 wrote:
Me and most customers purchase Turbotax with the expectation to EFile.
Misleading marketing!!!!!!!!!!
You can gripe all you want, but 99% of all e-file rejections come from the IRS and would affect the taxpayer no matter where they filed. If this is a case where Turbotax is failing to include the PIN due to a bug, it will be fixed if enough people with the problem help tech support to identify it. You could potentially file elsewhere and ask support for a refund. Maybe they have more generous unwritten refund poilicies.
Look up other posts regarding this known problem.
The only solution to get your surviving spouse filing the final married, joint tax return with deceased spouse federal and state tax returns successfully accepted via E-FILING is at FREETAXUSA dot com and not use TurboTax.
You do not have to print out a TurboTax created paper tax return and mail it in and even with certified mail with return receipt the IRS may lose your tax return (this happened once when an exception required a paper filing; the IRS finally acknowledged they lost it and accepted another filing).
The only difference in completing TurboTax vs Freetaxusa tax returns is that FREETAXUSA asks you to input BOTH your state ID and your deceased spouse's state ID numbers/driver's license numbers along with the prior year AGI.
TurboTax only allows for one person of the joint return's state ID entered in, but because a spouse died, the IRS wants to verify BOTH spouses' ID numbers.
TurboTax is supposedly aware of this problem, but they shirk fixing their software and ask people to just mail a paper return.
Turbotax spits out the same error for countless other longtime TT users: "Prior Year AGI Incorrect" when the AGI is correct.
The ONLY difference in the tax returns created by FREETAXUSA vs Turbotax:
* Freetaxusa inputs 1. prior year's AGI and 2. enter surviving spouse's State ID/driver's license number, issue date, and expiration date. 3. enter deceased spouse's State ID/driver's license number, issue date, and expiration date.
Voila, Freetaxusa E-FILED returns were accepted by the IRS and state tax board within half an hour.
* Turbotax: 1. prior year's AGI. 2. Asks only for surviving spouse's State ID and not the deceased spouse's. The IRS is making an exception for returns with a deceased spouse--they want to verify BOTH SPOUSES' ID info and NOT JUST ONE SPOUSE.
I have multiple elderly relatives who used TurboTax first via their CPAs and now on their own. Never encountered a problem e-filing until this one time to help my elderly widower father.
E-filing is the preferred option for most and customers are willing to pay the fee for getting quick IRS acknowledgement of acceptance of the returns.
Going to the post office and mailing a paper return is not allowed nor advisable for the 7 million people in the SF Bay Area who are under government-mandated shelter-in-place restrictions because of the high number of Covid19 cases and deaths (and many more unknown cases because of insufficient test kits). They only allow us to go out for medical reasons and food shopping, and if taking the dog for a walk, we must keep six feet away from any other person. E-filing is the only safe, permitted option at this time for many people.
Good luck to all those longtime turbotax users like my family who get the runaround from TurboTax to update their program rather than just cop out and say that people can just always file a paper return. It is clearly not an IRS problem because the IRS accepts FREETAXUSA dot com's E-FILED tax returns on the FIRST TRY for a deceased spouse and surviving spouse joint tax return.
VERY frustrating to learn this is a known problem. TurboTax, get your act together. We are attempting to submit for someone in our family who has recently DIED. Incredibly thoughtless to burden surviving family members with this glitch.
I see no difference between 2018 and 2019 AGI. Also I have one IP PIN # but I don't know if it is my # or my deceased husband's number. (deceased 10/4/2019) I put the number in both spaces but I guess I shouldn't have. We never used the IP PIN in previous years. Please advise. Thank you, Marlene Pikunis
can a return be efiled when the deceased person's pin cannot be entered in Turbo Tax?
We should then get a refund of the amount charged to efile state taxes.
@neelyabq Here's how you can reach live representatives for assistance: What is the TurboTax phone number?
@neelyabq wrote:
We should then get a refund of the amount charged to efile state taxes.
If you are using Turbotax online, there is no extra charge for e-filing and no refund would be due; the program prepared a perfectly good return you can mail in.
If you are using the desktop version, there is an extra charge to e-file the state return in most states, we can't provide a refund so you need to call customer support. See the link posted by the other expert. However, don't use the keyword "refund" because that will send you to the automatic tax refund information. Use the keyword "billing problem".
My return was rejected because the primary pin number did not match last year. My husband was primary last year and died this year. So I assume that the primary number used on the return was mine. What do I do?
I am sorry for your loss.
When your spouse dies, the IRS provides a short-term additional tax break in the form of a special filing status, qualifying widow(er) with qualifying child. Here are the details about using this filing status after the loss of a spouse.
The First Year
The year that your spouse dies, you can still file a joint return if you didn’t remarry and the executor approves the joint return. But if either spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year, the surviving spouse can’t file a joint return.
If you do file jointly, include all of your income and deductions for the full year, but only your spouse’s income and deductions until the date of death. If the deceased spouse owes any taxes that the estate can’t pay, you as the surviving spouse may be liable for the amounts owed.
The Next Two Years
For two tax years after the year your spouse died, you can file as a qualifying widow or widower. This filing status gives you a higher standard deduction and lower tax rate than filing as a single person. You must meet these requirements:
Otherwise you will file as single next year.
You can get around the questions about the previous year's pin number by using your deceased husband's pin number if you know it. You can also just answer the question about filing taxes last year that you did not file and it will avoid the pin number question.
@7241 wrote:
My return was rejected because the primary pin number did not match last year. My husband was primary last year and died this year. So I assume that the primary number used on the return was mine. What do I do?
There are two situations that may cause your tax return to be rejected when filing jointly with your spouse who died during the year.
One, the IRS may block the SSN of the deceased spouse to prevent fraud, in which case you have to print your return and mail it in.
Two, many people with this problem have complained it is a bug in Turbotax. I don't know one way or the other. Some people have reported that if they create a new account (new user name and password, can link to the same e-mail address) with the surviving spouse as the "first" or top name, and the deceased spouse second, and prepare the return all over again, that the IRS will then accept it. (You can't just change the order of names in the original file, that won't work for various hidden technical reasons.)
Good luck.
@7241 Please accept my condolences on the loss of your spouse.
When you prepared your return, you would have still been using the Married Filing Jointly status (assuming that's how you've filed in the past). Did you make any changes to your return after last year's information was transferred into the current tax year (2020)?
When I click on the federal return it just gives me the federal summary - how do I get to the other tax situation option to enter a pin. for my wife - can you post a screen shot. I must be clicking on the wrong item
Please click here to see the steps provided by VictorW9 in this Community thread regarding the IP Pin and how to include it. I also included this information in your other post as well.