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Turbo efile rejected twice after submitted with payment. What should we do?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 7, 2023
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My boyfriend & I are not married, but claim one child each of our children with no issues for the past several years. Turbo this time around made mention of adding a dependent at $0 dependent care for a dependent that is not being claimed, which we did, but one of us entered the SSN for one of the children not claimed & one of us left the SSN clear. Now it's creating issues on my boyfriend's filing as it was rejected twice for the same thing, but we can't get to the section to remove the child dependent to fix this error code 2441. It's not even showing the other child to be removed. He's already paid & submitted the efile twice so we're being told we can't clear the form to start over to remove. Not sure what to do here at this point especially since he's already paid for the return, or what would happen if we attempted to clear the form.

Best answer by ErnieS0

You can amend and re-file your return. TurboTax does not charge for an amended return if you filed the original with TurboTax. Occasionally you will have to upgrade and pay extra if your amendment covers a situation that is not handled by your current version of TurboTax.

Amending can take 16 weeks or more (sometime in July) so your boyfriend would have to file an extension.

You can add a dependent without adding any deductions.

I’m not understanding what you mean by: “one of us entered the SSN for one of the children not claimed & one of us left the SSN clear.”

If your boyfriend added the child you are claiming for dependent care and claimed no expenses, have you tried deleting your child care info and putting back in just the info about the child your boyfriend is claiming?

Tap Tax Tools in the left column
Tap Tools
Select Delete a Form in Tools Center
Scroll down to Form 2441 and delete
Click Continue With My Return in the lower right when you are finished

Your boyfriend still may not be able to e-file, but he can mail in his return. That’s faster than waiting for his amended return to come through.

M

MonikaK1

If the return has been rejected multiple times, and the issue involves using the SSN of a dependent appearing on another return, it may no longer be possible to e-file the return. Instead, the return as completed using TurboTax can be printed and filed by mail.

See this TurboTax help article for more information and instructions.

See also this IRS webpage regarding rejection errors for Social Security numbers used on another return.

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T

TriniNessa04Author

So can I still amend my tax return to remove the SSN of the child dependent & refile?

Would I have to pay again or also send in the amendment by mail? I already received my refund but don’t want to touch the money in case I owe anything back per the adjustment.
If we decide to amend my tax return by adding both of our kids onto my amended tax return, do I then need to add the rest of the mortgage interest and property tax that was originally split between us?

O

Opus 17

Employee

@TriniNessa04

We need to take a big step backwards.

The main thing to understand, is that when two parents live together unmarried and share custody of their children, each child may only be claimed as a dependent by one of the parents. The other parent should not even list the child on their tax return. During the dependent interview, when you are asked about custody of the child you want to claim, you should answer “no“ that you do not have a custody agreement with the other parent, because this question only applies to legal agreements between parents who live apart and share custody.

There is a special tax provision in the case of parents who live apart, that allows the parent who has custody to claim the dependent care credit, even if they allow the non-custodial parent to claim the child as a dependent. But this “splitting” the benefits of a dependent cannot be used when the two parents live together.

So the first question is, if you filed first and were accepted, what did you actually put on your tax return? Did you only list one dependent, or did you list both dependents, and did you claim both dependents or did you say that you had a custody agreement and the other parent was claiming a child? If you listed both children, but then said that one of the children had a custody agreement, that is what is causing the rejection of your boyfriend’s tax return.

You now have two choices. Either your boyfriend removes all the dependents and claims none of the children, and you file an amended return to change your answers, and claim all the tax benefits of both children, by saying that there is no custody agreement; or your boyfriend can claim one child as a full dependent, and you need to file an amended return to remove the second child completely from your tax return.

If your boyfriend removes all of the dependent children from his tax return, he should be allowed to e-file without rejection. However, it may be difficult to do this using TurboTax online because certain parts of the program are “sticky”. He would go into the section to review his personal information, look at the list of dependents, and click the delete button or trashcan icon next to each dependents, to delete them all from the tax return. This should in theory, delete any other forms that are connected to those children and allow him to e-file.

If your plan is for your boyfriend to claim one child as a dependent, he will need to check the list of dependents and delete all the children. Then re-add the child he wants to claim, and make sure that during the custody interview, he says that there is no agreement with the other parent to share custody. In this case, your boyfriend will print his tax return and file by mail. No refund of fees is required because the fee covers preparing a tax return and does not guarantee e-filing. If he gets a valid tax return, then he got what he paid for even if he has to mail it.

It will be free for you to amend your return, but don't file the amended return until your original refund claim is paid. The IRS e-file database is not updated during tax season, which means that if your boyfriend wants to claim a dependent that you originally added to your return by mistake, he will never be able to e-file and will always have to mail his tax return. So there's no rush for you to amend.

You can also post back here with more details if you are having trouble diagnosing the problem.

E

ErnieS0Answer

You can amend and re-file your return. TurboTax does not charge for an amended return if you filed the original with TurboTax. Occasionally you will have to upgrade and pay extra if your amendment covers a situation that is not handled by your current version of TurboTax.

Amending can take 16 weeks or more (sometime in July) so your boyfriend would have to file an extension.

You can add a dependent without adding any deductions.

I’m not understanding what you mean by: “one of us entered the SSN for one of the children not claimed & one of us left the SSN clear.”

If your boyfriend added the child you are claiming for dependent care and claimed no expenses, have you tried deleting your child care info and putting back in just the info about the child your boyfriend is claiming?

Tap Tax Tools in the left column
Tap Tools
Select Delete a Form in Tools Center
Scroll down to Form 2441 and delete
Click Continue With My Return in the lower right when you are finished

Your boyfriend still may not be able to e-file, but he can mail in his return. That’s faster than waiting for his amended return to come through.

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

T

TriniNessa04Author

I misunderstood the adding of a non dependent to maximize the dependent care credit I think. Since the IRS recognizes my other child it had already pulled his SSN without me entering it. So I overlooked that. The adding a non dependent not claimed threw me off. I shouldn’t have done it at all. I shouldn’t have to pay extra as all I want to do is remove any instance of my other child added in error. Hoping this goes smoothly & doesn’t affect future filings.

O

Opus 17

Employee

@TriniNessa04 wrote:

I misunderstood the adding of a non dependent to maximize the dependent care credit I think. Since the IRS recognizes my other child it had already pulled his SSN without me entering it. So I overlooked that. The adding a non dependent not claimed threw me off. I shouldn’t have done it at all. I shouldn’t have to pay extra as all I want to do is remove any instance of my other child added in error. Hoping this goes smoothly & doesn’t affect future filings.

It sounds like Turbotax automatically claimed one of your children, maybe because you used Turbotax last year?

If you claimed child 1 as a dependent and child 2 for dependent care only, but your partner wants to claim child 2 as a dependent, then your partner can print and mail their return. (They will also have to print and mail their state return if you live in a state with income tax.). Then you will file an amended return to remove child 2 from your return. There should not be any additional Turbotax fees for this.