TurboTax

I have looked through the posts that include TurboTax and am not sure if this specific matter has been raised before:

When I was about to send off the 1040 for 2006 (late November in order to qualify for the foreign income exclusion), I realized that the program had done something extremely stupid: it had deducted our 2006 UK income as foreign income, but it had neglected to include this same income in the total wages/salaries figure.

What really didn't make sense was that if it continued this approach in a year when all our income was from the UK, it would result in a huge negative number for income.

In the meantime I have looked further into it and concluded that yes, TurboTax was completely off base--it asks about foreign income in the part of the program that deals with income, but it does not actually count it except for purposes of the exclusion.

Has anyone else noticed this happening?

Hi Jeremyl

I used to work for Intuit and on the UK version of TurboTax in a technical capacity. I suggest you contact Intuit Support and go through your figures you've input in the program with them to see if there's something included which is causing the 'issue' you see.

If at that stage the spurious entry can be found, you should see your figures snap into place. If not, you may need to send your file into Intuit for investigation. We used to include an 'anonymiser' which meant your personal details would be seen, and just the entries in your tax scenario. That way, the calculations occuring in the program could be analysed to see if there are any bugs.

Ask also, if other's have reported the same issue to them, it could be a known issue and possibly a workaround or better still a patch available to fix it.

Please ensure you 'update' your TurboTax version to the latest release - I'm sure you're using this years version, it's just that various patches and upgrades are usually posted up to improve it.

It'd be very hard for someone on this forum to troubleshoot you're query as your inputs would need to be tracked and replicated by someone using the same software (release) as you in order to 'see' the issue you're reporting!

Hope this helps!
Cheers, DtM, West London & Slough UK!

I suggest you contact Intuit Support and go through your figures you've input in the program with them to see if there's something included which is causing the 'issue' you see.

Thanks, DtM. I am definitely planning to contact Intuit. Their Accuracy Guarantee is entirely pertinent here.

Please ensure you 'update' your TurboTax version to the latest release - I'm sure you're using this years version, it's just that various patches and upgrades are usually posted up to improve it.

This is actually TurboTax 2006 because it was for our 2006 taxes (we were granted an extension until the end of November), and I tell it to go ahead and update itself every time it is opened, so it should be as current as possible.

The workaround I found this time was to double-check the calculations and then redo the taxes myself... so if Intuit can't come up with a more attractive scenario, 2007 will definitely be the last year I purchase from them, despite its usefulness for some things!

I'm simply posting here to warn people to watch out for this. UK-Y seems like one of the best places that a group of TurboTax's customers in a similar situation might be found. I understand a technical query needs the publisher's technical response, so I am definitely not trolling for a solution here. :-) I suppose in the OP that may not have been clear.

The possibility of the issue just ought to be known.

Appreciate the pointers on how I might proceed!

Yeh Jeremy, best best is to see what they say in Support.

I remember testing well over 100 tax scenarios to make sure calculations were correct in the product depending on entries provided.

It's entirely possible it's a bug or it could be user inconsistency!

See what support say and if you feel it's still wrong, they do have people who know their tax rules and regs and you may want to escalate it to them for in depth analysis.

Good luck !

DtM! West London & Slough UK!

It might be you and not the programme that is wrong.

Why not tell us which box or line is missing the figure of your wages, and we can tell you if indeed it is incorrect?  The problem is that there are so many places that wages could appear on the form.  Is it missing from all of them?  Or just some of them?

If it's 1040 page 1 line 7, you're right, big booboo from TurboTax.

If it's 2555 page 2 line 19, you're right, big booboo from TurboTax.

However, if you are talking about Form 1116 page 1 Part I section I box 1a, that box is the total foreign wages LESS any 2555 exclusion.  So if your wages are $80,000 and your 2555 exclusion is $80,000, box 1a will be zero.  The other way to report it (in this same scenario) is to have box 1a = 80,000 and box 2 = 80,000.  In either case, you aren't going get any foreign tax credits for income which has been excluded on form 2555.  You don't get to double dip.

If it's 1040 page 1 line 7, you're right, big booboo from TurboTax.

This is the one.

Form 1040, page 1, line 7 = the total of our U.S. W-2s.

It does not include any of the U.K. income from November/December 2006.

I have quadruple-checked the program and there is no other place for inputting this income; foreign income is simply included under "Other Income" in the chart of income types.

Also, I repeat, I am not soliciting advice here. I am simply putting this out as a warning for others to watch out for something like this happening to them.



Hopefully that is clear enough now.

You should write to turbotax immediately.  They need to know their programme has this error.  I recommend it to a lot of people, and I can't do so if it's got this booboo in it.  They will send out a correcting patch very quickly (after confirming it wasn't data entry error first).

DH just bought TurboTax and had a problem at first where it said we were getting a refund of over 18K! BUT, there was a box in the income area he had to check and now we owe $2500. It was something he missed the 1st time around though. I'll have to ask him which specific box it was.