In TurboTax Online: Open your return in TurboTax. To do this, sign in to TurboTax, and select Take me to my return. In the left-side menu, select Tax Tools > Tools. In the pop-up window Tool Center, choose Delete a form. Select Delete next to Schedule C in the list, and follow the onscreen instructions.

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old problem

Question

I keep getting error message "Schedule C. Other Expense Text is invalid for Electronic Filing. Please remove preceding spaces or invalid characters", I don;t have any entries in this file so I can't correct or remove anything,

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 17, 2020
6 replies
0 views

No text available

JohnW152

In TurboTax Online:

Open your return in TurboTax. To do this, sign in to TurboTax, and select Take me to my return.
In the left-side menu, select Tax Tools > Tools.
In the pop-up window Tool Center, choose Delete a form.
Select Delete next to Schedule C in the list, and follow the onscreen instructions.

ajb6505

How do you resolve error message "Schedule C Other Expense text is invalid. I am not doing my return online with turbo tax. Using purchased software. I see one response is to delete the Schedule C. How do you reenter that section of the tax return.

Raeka

I DO have entries on that form so I can't delete. What to do?

Raeka

Thanks to E2P who had a similar problem but with medical expense form instead of schedule c... I tried going back to stepping through the form. When I got to the Other expenses area, I deleted everything and made sure my cursor was at beginning of each line. Then closed that section. I then re-opened that section and re-entered all the info making sure no spaces were there and it finally went through. What a pain in the neck!

xjt8t7d

I have this problem as well. Stepping through the form didn't work for me. It will not allow me to do anything with the first text line under Olympic and Paralympic Prize Money Smart Worksheet. Just deleting the form is not helpful since I need this form to file. Does anyone else have a work around? Come on Intuit - please fix this problem or provide a work around that works!

ReneeM7122

It sounds like you have received a 1099-MISC for prize winnings. Here is how to enter your 1099-MISC:

Select "Federal" on the left panel
Select the "Wages & Income" sub-tab at the top of the screen
Select See all income
Scroll down to Other Common Income and select show more
Start/Revisit box next to Income from Form 1099-MISC.
Did you get a 1099-Misc? click on the Yes button
Enter the information from the 1099-MISC
On the screen Does one of these uncommon situations apply? mark that This was prize winnings and click Continue

@xjt8t7d

mqhtax

Here is is 2021 and TurboTax has not corrected this issue. It appears it has been a problem for at least two prior years and I do not find any fix. I have tried everything short of throwing the software in the trash and starting over with another software company. I did not even have any entries related to this topic but yet I get the error message which will not allow me to submit online.

Raeka

I found that the problem occurs if there are any leading spaces in the text boxes. Maybe you can open form and on every text box, put your cursor and backspace or try to back space to make sure there are no spaces before the text.

joevinciguerra

Wish it was that easy. There's nothing there to delete. Will try to print Sch D and then delete it so I can reenter info directly onto the blank form. Hope that doesn't mess up all the calculations.

Anyone with specific instructions on how to do this, help appreciated,

You would think Intuit would have a special Help # for this issue. Getting to a live person is impossible. Insult to injury, they try to make you pay for Expert

joevinciguerra

Help . I can't file my return

AmyC

Employee

@joevinciguerra Go back through your expenses and make sure there are no empty character fields before the words begin. You can put your cursor on the words and backspace to make sure you get rid of any blank spots.

**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"

jonesler

I have done every suggestion in this thread, I have gone as far as to remove ALL spaces so the words just run together, there are NO special characters, NO spaces at the beginning. Do I have to mail this in?

Dh40

I ended up mailing my return. Intuit is not interested in fixing this error. I have used Turbo tax for about 15 years but I am done with it. Anyone have a suggestion for a good reliable tax program?

JamesG1

I suspect that within a self-employment activity, an expenditure line was created under Other miscellaneous expenses.

Click Edit to the right.
At the screen Let's enter the miscellaneous expenses for your work, delete the offending line with the Delete trashcan icon.

Since the message includes the statement about 'spaces or invalid characters', there could be space bar entries or characters that are not visible but offending, none the less.

@Dh40

**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"