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Charitable donations with standard deduction

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 22, 2022
13 replies
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Here's the situation: I made 2 donations in 2021, one for $100 and one for $300-- entered all the info under deductions. TurboTax chose standard deduction for me as best option. I finish my taxes and go to do smart check and i have an error: "1040/1040SR Wks: Charitable contributions: Charitable contributions has an unacceptable value." Then it shows a box with 300. and a label Charitable contributions.

What am I supposed to do?

I understand that I can only claim $300 deduction if taking standard deduction, but TT keeps showing an error?

Thanks

Best answer by DoninGA

Using the TurboTax desktop editions -

To remove the error I went into Forms mode and deleted the Charitable Organization Worksheets. Then on the Form 1040 Worksheet for Line 12b removed the $300 amount so Line 12b is now blank (empty).

Going back to Step-by-Step I completed the Deductions & Credits section without entering anything for a charitable donation and click on Done with Deductions. Continuing through the screens until landing on the screen labeled Charitable Cash Contributions under Cares Act, I entered $300. Continued through Final Review without error.

For the TurboTax online editions -

The problem appears to be that a charitable donation was entered in the Deductions and Credits section of the program when you are only eligible for the Standard Deduction.

Click on Tax Tools on the left side of the online program screen

Click on Tools

Click on Delete a form

Scroll through the all the forms, schedules and worksheets listed and delete all the Charitable Organization forms listed.

When completed with removing forms click on Continue With My Return at the bottom of the list.

Click on Federal on the left side of the screen

Click on Deductions & Credits at the top of the screen

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Wrap up tax breaks

Continue through the screens. After the screen showing that you are getting the Standard Deduction the following screen is Charitable Cash Contributions under Cares Act. Enter $600 if filing Jointly or $300 for all other filing status'. The federal review and the Final Review should no longer show an error for the charitable donation.

DoninGAAnswer

Employee

Using the TurboTax desktop editions -

To remove the error I went into Forms mode and deleted the Charitable Organization Worksheets. Then on the Form 1040 Worksheet for Line 12b removed the $300 amount so Line 12b is now blank (empty).

Going back to Step-by-Step I completed the Deductions & Credits section without entering anything for a charitable donation and click on Done with Deductions. Continuing through the screens until landing on the screen labeled Charitable Cash Contributions under Cares Act, I entered $300. Continued through Final Review without error.

For the TurboTax online editions -

The problem appears to be that a charitable donation was entered in the Deductions and Credits section of the program when you are only eligible for the Standard Deduction.

Click on Tax Tools on the left side of the online program screen

Click on Tools

Click on Delete a form

Scroll through the all the forms, schedules and worksheets listed and delete all the Charitable Organization forms listed.

When completed with removing forms click on Continue With My Return at the bottom of the list.

Click on Federal on the left side of the screen

Click on Deductions & Credits at the top of the screen

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Wrap up tax breaks

Continue through the screens. After the screen showing that you are getting the Standard Deduction the following screen is Charitable Cash Contributions under Cares Act. Enter $600 if filing Jointly or $300 for all other filing status'. The federal review and the Final Review should no longer show an error for the charitable donation.

A

arviAuthor

THANK YOU!

D

deetrumpet

@arvi @wbvogel @chinga52 @ErnieS0 @DoninGA Tax year 2021. I'm having a similar problem, and the posted solutions (up to Jan. 29) don't work for me. I'm using 2021 Desktop TT Premier, CD-ROM. I'm filing MFJ, taking the standard deduction. I donated $750 cash to charity, and so I'm entitled to a $600 deduction on line 12b of form 1040. My problem is that TurboTax keeps overriding my $600 entry and changing it to $300. I've double-checked that I've checked the MFJ box, and that I'm taking the standard deduction, and that my charitable donation entries show they are cash donations. (TT seems to call them "money," not "cash."

In tax year 2020, the limit for MFJ was $300. Could TT have overlooked this change in the law for tax year 2021 that raised the limit to $600 for MFJ?

What should I do next?

H

homesteader1

@deetrumpet Exactly the same problem with 2021 TT Basic. This is definitely a TT accuracy problem. Work-around don't change that truth.

When I do the Review tab, "Let's make sure your taxes are correct", TT changes it back to $300 causing a decrease in my refund. Clicking through a few Continues comes to "Let's Check These Entries" and clicking on "Check Entries" shows the $300 in red. I change it back to $600. Refund goes back up and I click on "Run Smart Check" and all is well, and TT proceeds to go to the filing screens. But if I ever make a change and rerun the "Federal Review", TT changes it back to the incorrect $300 without notice.

Hey, I copied the following screen shot from the TT program. What is this "100% accuracy guarantee" and how to I make a claim? At a 25% marginal tax rate, the $300 mistake would cost me $75.

C

chinga52

True - made changes to include charitable donation of $600.00 for Married + Standard Deduction.

However, after doing TurbTax Federal Tax check, Turbo Tax changes it back to $300.00 and flags Error.

TurboTax needs to flag this Federal Charitable Tax donation and update Federal Tax software

Don't know what else to do?

J

Jason707

I just had this issue and a turbo tax person told me to delete the donation under deductions/credits screen and then enter the donation amount under the ACA donation screen. I did this and it fixed it BUT this in turn lowered my State refund by over $100.

So I went back and re-entered my cash donation and got the same error. Next when I ran an error check the software pulled up the 1040 form Line 12(b) and I changed the $300 to $600 and it corrected it, no errors and I now have the proper refund amounts for fed/state.

C

chinga52

Jason707

I deleted charitable contribution "Under Charitable Deduction", then after "done with deduction" entered under cares Act 600. This seems to correct issue with Federal.

To take advatage of Charitable deduction on State Return....I went to forms and under state entered charitable deduction......This seem to correct State return!

Looks like it works.... Federal and State Tax returns.

Going to wait before I file.

C

cautery

All of the "SOLUTIONS" presented in this thread are kludges being put forward to work around an OBVIOUS Intuit TurboTax coding problem.

The software KNOWS that $300 is NOT correct if filing status is MFJ, your charitable contributions EXCEED $600.00, and you are electing to take the Standard Deduction. I am unwilling to LOSE visibility of the some $5000+ I gave to charity last year (on the Worksheets, et al.)

I should be able to have the REAL total on 12a, and the program should KNOW to put $600 on 12b and leave it the frack alone.

I'm still waiting on a "real" W2 (manually entered from Payroll report), so I will leave this alone and give Intuit a little while to fix this.

This is BROKEN!!!

J

jj1645

After 2 days of work, and today, a 2 hour phone call, going from person to person, 4 times, the conclusion is THERE IS A SYSTEM GLITCH. Ever person I repeated the issue with, and did the same things I had done all said they had not seen this.

Finishing the federal part of the return, showed OK. After finishing the state, ran review and got the charitable donation error. In the end, ever employee said everything entered was correct and were not sure why the error.

Turbo tax says not to file until you get a no errors screen in review. Finally we went forward to file, and looked at final forms and the correct information was there.

Employee admitted to a 'GLITCH".

So if you get the message, showing the error of charitable donation, continue on to file, and check the forms at the end. Mine were correct, even with the error message.

What was worse no one seemed to care about the error.

K

KAR9

This is a dumb error. TurboTax is not calculating the correct amount. It should be $300 for single and $600 for married filing joint. It calculates $300. If you are filing married joint, just enter $600 in place of the $300 and it clears the error.

K

Keith44053

You can enter the correct amount but if you run a final review it will change your entry back to $300 and then highlight it as an error. It is a programming problem.

A

AnnetteB6

For the 2021 tax return using the Married Filing Joint filing status, you are allowed to deduct up to $600 in cash contributions to charity without claiming itemized deductions.

If you are using the Married Filing Joint filing status AND using the standard deduction:

As you go through your Federal return and you have entered your charitable contributions, you will not see any additional questions regarding your inputs. If your state return also allows you to deduct charitable contributions, then the amounts you entered will be taken into account on your state return.

After you have finished your state return and you are getting ready to file, when you run the final Review, you will probably see this message:

1040/1040SR Wks: Charitable Contributions: Charitable contributions has an unacceptable value

You will also see a place at the top of the screen for Charitable contributions with '300' in the box. Below that box, you can see your Form 1040 line 12a which shows the amount of your cash contributions that you already entered.

If your line 12a is greater or equal to $600, enter '600' in the box at the top of the screen.

If your line 12a is less than $600, enter your line 12a amount in the box at the top of the screen.

After changing the input at the top of the screen to the correct value, proceed through any other errors that may pop up and then move forward to file your return. It is very important that you do not revisit any other section of your return before you file or the change may not be retained or able to be changed a second time.

See the screenshot below for reference:

@Keith44053

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B

busreset

I hit this error, too. Not only does the bug exist, they still haven’t fixed it after at least a month of knowing about it, and there isn’t a single Intuit support person you can contact that even has ever heard of this problem.

D

deetrumpet

May I respectfully suggest that the problem is now clear, and we're all interested in reading solutions. But it's unhelpful to make well-founded complaints about TurboTax. A still-unresolved question is this: If you take the standard deduction on your federal) return, but itemize on your state return, how do you enter your charitable contributions for state-tax purposes without triggering the error warning in your federal error-check? Has anyone figured out yet how to accomplish this?

DaveF1006

@deetrumpet To clarify, what state are you a resident of?

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D

deetrumpet

California.

I took the standard deduction on my federal return, and itemized deductions on the state return. After many unsuccessful tries, I was able to eliminate the error-check problem, but I made no notes on how I accomplished that.

C

chinga52

TT program has an issue: with "Standard deduction" & married. A work around (TT needs to resolve program) is to "zero" out all you Charitable deduction. Then after "done with deduction" TT will prompt you

Confirming Standard deduction. It will take you to the Cares Act were you can enter $600.00. This will alloow TT to pass all Federal Tax checks with "no error"

When you do this and filing your state Tax : you will notice your State return will be lower. This is because you zeroed out the charitable donation. Under Forms: look for your state tax return and manual enter charitable donation on form. This will add charitable donation to state and recompute your State return amount.

So far this has worked! and passes all TT checks

A

AnnetteB6

Based on a test case, the issue discussed in this thread appears to have been resolved within the program. However, for anyone still having problems, see the information below: