@ getakhil wrote:
Obviously, I just want to enter estimated tax payment once, not twice, however, when I preview the forms it is shown in 1040 as well as in schedule 3, not sure why, hence I asked this question. Looks like I have to call Turbo Tax to understand this, might be it could be a worksheet, not sure.
In 2019 schedule 3 form I see there is a line to enter estimated tax payments, but in 2020 schedule 3 form there is no such line.
Yes, for 2019, that is correct. Estimated tax payments did show up on the actual 2019 Schedule 3. However, a lot of things are different in the schedules this year compared to 2019, including quite a few things on the Form 1040 itself. I'll provide links below so you can compare the two Schedule 3, but you may have already done so.
For 2020, Federal estimated tax payments has its own line on the Form 1040 (Line 26) so a schedule is not needed. For 2019, it did not have its own line so it was combined in the 2019 Schedule 3 total that flowed to the 2019 Form 1040. So it looks like for 2020, the IRS plucked the estimated taxes line out of Schedule 3 and put it directly on the Form 1040, Line 26. Line 26 gets its info from the Tax Payments Worksheet (which got its info from the interview entries.)
If you're using the "Preview My 1040" feature of Online TurboTax, then you're looking at the Form 1040 Worksheet which has some Schedule 1-3 worksheets attached. That Schedule 3 worksheet ultimately shows a Total of all payments from multiple sources--whether it is from W-2 withholding or any other payment, and it shows what line(s) of the Form 1040 it got the figures from. The worksheet essentially adds up the same payment items that the Form 1040 adds up. The "total payments" figure on the Schedule 3 worksheet should reconcile with the "total payments" shown on Form 1040, Line 33. I can see why it's confusing when looking at that Sched 3 Worksheet.
In any case, when you print out an actual 2020 Schedule 3, it doesn't look like that. In fact, in my scenarios no Schedule 3 is even generated for estimated tax payments alone, since one is not needed in that case; i.e., it only generates the Schedule 3 Worksheet (as part of the 1040 Worksheet), but no actual Schedule 3. I have to also add an additional type of credit/payment to make it generate an actual Schedule 3 in the final return.
Look at the actual Schedule 3 images from the IRS website linked below for 2019 and 2020, and you'll see the difference. You may have already done this.
2019 Schedule 3: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040s3--2019.pdf
2020 Schedule 3: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040s3.pdf
From those images I see no evidence of estimated taxes on a 2020 Schedule 3.
Again, I'm a fellow user sharing my observations and don't know another way to explain it. If you have any further questions about reporting estimated taxes, Schedule 3, or the Schedule 3 Worksheet, you probably should speak to someone in realtime. Here's how to speak to the folks at TurboTax Support:
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You can use this contact form to get a phone number.
https://support.turbotax.intuit.com/contact
