After passing all checks, agreeing to e-file, and paying for my state e-filing, TurboTax did one more check and raised an error indicating that W-2 Income on my California form 540 does not match the total from my federal W-2 worksheet. The form 540 line 12 said "0", but the federal W-2 worksheet was non-existent because I didn't have any W-2s. All my income was from business or investments.
I tried a number of things, including overriding the blank with 0, and creating a dummy W-2 with 0 income to no avail.
I called TurboTax help and after a lot of trial and error, the following worked:
1. Save the return and exit TurboTax.
2. Open TurboTax and delete any W-2 from the Personal Income step-by-step.
3. Go to Forms and delete the California 540 form. There is a Delete Form button in the lower left to do this.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2.
5. Go to step-by-step, state taxes, and follow the directions to complete the state return. All the info is still there, but TurboTax will recreate the State 540 form.
6. At the end of the process, it now lets me file the state return electronically. When I look at the 540 form, it now has blank in line 12 rather than 0.
