TurboTax shows I do not owe a penalty or have to file Form 2210, but error check at the end keeps telling me there are Form2210AI fields to fill in. Why?

[cbmstr8nr]

I am having the same problem as many others with needlessly generating the 2210 form.  TTax is working on a fix and I was told on the phone it should be ready by March 1st.  Saw online a post from TTax that said March 8th.  The IRS rejected my return twice, even after TTax said it was fixed to re-submit.  Help Desk at TTax said (after 20 minute wait) that she has "no communication" with the higher ups at TTax, they don't tell her anything.  The best solution will be a different tax prep program next year.  A simple email to all of the users would have informed us of the bug and the expected fix date so we didn't spend countless hours trying to fix a problem that can't be fixed.  If everyone that has this problem switches software next year, TurboTax will get the message in lost sales and then be bought out by someone who has better customer service.  Will be interesting to watch!

[Brad]

cbmstr8nr...to get the 1040 to be accepted by the IRS simply go into the program and manually set your 2017 income to "0" on the carryover worksheet...that will solve it.      

[cbmstr8nr]

Could not find the "carryover worksheet" anywhere. I'm using Windows 10 Home & Business version

[zahrtmindspringc]

Just beware, as pointed out in this thread: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/7206062">https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/7206062</a> , if your 2017 tax paid was NOT zero, then setting it to zero for your return this year involves willfully falsifying your taxes.  You might want to be careful about advice to intentionally file a false tax return – a Federal crime. That thread ( <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/7206062">https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/7206062</a> ) includes a different solution (posted by me mid-February) that worked for several of us.  It involves adding a separate explanation to Form 2210, since the auto-fill-in that TT provides doesn't seem to satisfy the IRS.  (Full disclosure, some other users couldn't figure out how to make this work.  But some of us did and successfully filed our returns without fudging our data.)

[Brad]

To be clear...there is NO legal requirement for a tax filer to include a form 2210 in your return, hence the work around setting 2017 income to zero is not violating any law and you are not willfully filing a false return.   The purpose of the 2210 is to proactively request the IRS to compute any underpayment penalty for your to potentially include that penalty on your return.  Trust me, if the IRS determines you have under-withheld/under-estimated your taxes they will send you a bill for the interest penaly due...which BTW is not a tax, but a penalty.     In my case TT was incorrectly determining that a 2210 needed to be completed...but I was getting a refund and had both withholding and estimated taxes well within the parameters of what is acceptable...and on top of that TT error checking did not catch this problem and every time the return was submitted is was rejected...

Now if you are in a situation where you know you owe $5K in taxes but have made no estimated payments or had any tax withheld then I would wait for the fix from TT just to be safe since you DO owe penalties...but as I said, even without the 2210 the IRS will determine you penalties all by themselves.

[djdeckman]

It seems to me that zeroing the 2017 tax, which avoids generating Form 2210, would be acceptable. As bskerr2009 suggests, in many cases there is no need to file Form 2210; thus, it wouldn't be in your electronic return. If you feel uncomfortable with this solution, you could save a copy of your tax return file with the 2017 tax and Form 2210 and rerun it after TT fixes the problem. Hopefully, that would make Form 2210 go away. That way you have a correct record just in case, although as I understand, Form 2210 wouldn't be generated after the fix. Maybe this would just be a way to satisfy the user that the proper approach has been used. I'm going to review a few more responses from users and decide what to do. Worst case, I will wait until the problem is fixed. Did I miss anything?

[zahrtmindspringc]

I agree that Form 2210 is not needed in these circumstances, and that it's OK to omit it.  I do not agree that willfully inputting phony information someplace else in order to eliminate Form 2210 is OK.  That false information becomes part of your TurboTax history, and who knows where it might show up on your filed return somewhere, someday?  Now I do agree that it would likely be harmless.  But why take that chance when there's already a solution (link posted above)?  And, if your intentionally false information is caught by the IRS, do you want to risk an audit even if you don't get punished?  (And your intentionally phony information would surely void TurboTax's guarantee.)  So again, you might want to be careful about casual advice to intentionally input false tax information.

[djdeckman]

Good advice, but that's why I suggested making a copy of the electronic return first and then making the correction after the fix is implemented. Maybe I will wait until TurboTax fixes the problem. I really don't want to file a paper return and wait longer. The link above, which goes to a TurboTax FAQ, indicates that users with this problem can resubmit ("Those whose e-file was rejected because there was no exemption statement attached may now e-file"). Does that mean the statement will be included with e-file, and the IRS won't reject it? By the way, some of the other suggestions (e.g., overwrite Box A and click on Box B) don't seem to work in the Mac desktop version.

[zahrtmindspringc]

As I noted in the other thread: "My version is TurboTax Premier desktop/Mac."
So, to be clear, I did nothing at all to Line A (or Box A).  I left it exactly the way TurboTax made it.  I simply clicked the "Explain" box/button on Line B, which generated an Additional Information Explanation Statement form for Form 2210, where I added the text: "85% Waiver".  After that, my eFile worked perfectly.  Simple.  And no phony numbers.

[djdeckman]

That's the same version of TurboTax I have. I noted that the 85% Waiver statement was already generated  in the Explain button for Line B. Thus, I added an extra sentence that our payment of estimated taxes and withholding qualifies for the 85% Waiver just to try it. I don't know if the TurboTax generated statement was in my original e-file. I guess I will give it another try. My only concern is that the Explanation Statement doesn't show up when I create a pdf of my tax return. Thanks so much for responding to my comment.

[zahrtmindspringc]

Sure.  Glad to.  Since TurboTax may have been tinkering with this since those several of us successfully filed, your experience may be different.
Concerning the Explanation Statement printed file copy, it was included in my pdf after I filed. I also posted about that in the other thread.  This is part of what I said:
The "Additional information from your 2018 Federal Tax Return" page printed as the last page of my printed Federal Return, after the "ELECTRONIC POSTMARK - CERTIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC FILING" page, and before the start of the State return pages.  It did not print next to Form 2210.  It printed dead last before the State pages.

[djdeckman]

Thanks. I'll give it another try. I will post the result - filed or rejected. I "printed" the tax return and the complete set of forms and worksheets to pdfs. I saw your thread about where the statement ended up among the pages, but no Explanation Statement that I could find (I searched for "85% Waiver." Perhaps it gets generated after filing.

[djdeckman]

It worked! The federal return was accepted in about 15 minutes; the state return in about 1.5 hours. Now I won’t have anxiety about taking a shortcut or wait for TurboTax to be fixed. Someday, I hope the IRS eliminates penalties when there is a refund no matter what the circumstances. A few years ago, we had a refund and paid a $5 penalty because we didn’t submit estimated taxes equally among the quarters. Completing Form 2210AI to annualize income and avoid a penalty is a pain. This way was much easier, although it took a lot of helpful people.

[zahrtmindspringc]

Excellent!  Congratulations!  So glad it worked for you!!   🙂

[maggieknol61356]

finally got mine to go thru last nite after many tries. as suggested left the 85% waver as explanation on form 2210 even though they owe me money.  what a mess. thanks for your help.