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Anonymous

Question

Error: Gross Sales Price shouldn't be less than zero

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 25, 2022
14 replies
0 views

TT complains that "Gross Sales Price shouldn't be less than zero" when I'm about to efile. Apparently this issue has been there since at least the 2019 version.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/investments-and-rental-properties/discussion/my-1099b-has-a-negative-cost-basis/00/598390

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/retirement/discussion/can-i-enter-a-negative-amount-for-proceeds-box-1d-on-my-1099-b/00/1165889

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/investments-and-rental-properties/discussion/turbo-tax-does-not-allow-negative-numbers-in-1099-b-box-1d/00/1177687

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/is-there-a-way-to-bypass-smartcheck-errors-smartcheck-disp[product key removed]-price-shouldn-t-be-less/00/2249442

The issue could happen if you have short sales and import from certain brokers such as TD Ameritrade or ETrade.

Some "Expert" answered in the above threads that IRS does not allow negative sales value. That's not true. As stated in the IRS 1099-B Page 8 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099b.pdf) :

Box 1d. Proceeds
Enter the gross cash proceeds from all dispositions (including short sales) of securities, commodities, options, securities futures contracts, or forward contracts. Show a loss, such as one from a closing transaction on a written option or forward contract, as a negative amount by enclosing it in parentheses.

Some "Expert" in those threads gave a workaround by changing the reported number. I don't think that's an acceptable solution. Messing with reported numbers is a bad idea. You don't want to confuse IRS.

Many brokers report negative values for short sales, such as TD Ameritrade, ETrade. Many other tax softwares have no problem with negative values. It seems only TT has this issue. Please fix it and make the fix permanent.

BriGuy832

Agree completely. I went through this whole problem last year, and ended up manually changing 186 entries from "-" numbers in "Gross Sales Price" to 0, and inverting those to be positive numbers in the "Cost or Other Basis plus Expenses". And of course a few days later, TurboTax rolled out an update allowing these things.

But now the problem is back again, but only on my MA return, Schedule B/D, Capital Gains/Losses Worksheet.

One would hope that TurboTax would roll out a similar update/patch/fix that they did for last year's Federal Return, but that happened February 18th last year, and here we are a month after that with no update for the MA version.

I was able to submit my Federal Return that has all the same information a few weeks back, and there was an error at that time that not all MA forms were available yet. Now that there all required forms, I am getting this "Gross Sales Price shouldn't be less than zero" error message, even though it is all the same data from my ACCEPTED Federal Return.

Really makes no sense, and shame on me for thinking that TurboTax would actually fix this issue as they said they would even after having such a terrible experience last year!

PatriciaV

Employee

Thank you for bringing this to our attention for the 2021 tax year. It would be helpful to have a TurboTax ".tax2021" file that is experiencing this issue.

You can send us a “diagnostic” file that has your “numbers” but not your personal information.  If you would like to do this, here are the instructions:

In TurboTax Online, please go to the black panel on the left side of your program and select Tax Tools.

Then select Tools below Tax Tools.
A window will pop up which says Tools Center.
On this screen, select Share my file with Agent.
You will see a message explaining what the diagnostic copy is.  Click okay through this screen and then you will get a Token number.
Reply to this thread with your Token number. This will allow us to open a copy of your return without seeing any personal information.

For TurboTax Desktop, please go to Online in the TurboTax header and choose Send Tax File to Agent. Post your token here.

We will then be able to see the same experience you are having. If we are able to determine the cause, we'll reply here with an update and perhaps a resolution.

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

bmartin112

I'm having this same issue on hundreds of transactions (I sold a lot of options, then bought them back). I uploaded my file...token is 970922

Thank you!

careypilo

same problem, still not updated 3/30/2022

MAK551

Folks, do not modify 1099-B data. I found a workaround. Instead of linking TT to your brokerage account for automatic download of transaction data, manually enter the 1099-B information at the AGGREGATE level (i.e., not for each trade). You will see 1099-B has a section that summarizes short-term and long-term proceeds, cost of basis, gain/loss information. You can enter this summary/aggregate level information and avoid dealing with negative proceeds issue. TT will ask you to upload your 1099-B form in PDF as a supporting document, and that's it. After you manually entered 1099-B data, go back and delete the 1099-B that was pulled from your brokerage, in order to duplicate your gains/losses. Hope this helps!

BriGuy832

Thanks for the tip @MAK551 .

What you provided makes sense, but the underlying issue of Intuit's software, which we all have paid for, does not work properly. None of us should have to figure out "workarounds" or "data manipulation" strategies in order to get the software to work, especially when an "update/patch/roll-out" (or whatever you want to call it) was made available last year when this same exact issue was present in the Federal product.

For me at least, I have multiple 1099-Bs, all of which I will need to total up to determine amounts to enter as the summary amounts. So now again, there is this manual intervention required by the paying user to basically force the Intuit software to work.

Makes no sense.

ACCurtis

Previous replies have said anything I could say. I'm not going to bother filing a trouble report, getting a token, etc. I have been a TurboTax user since 1997, and had NO problems until last year (2020 tax year) when I hit this problem. As others have reported, I went through the same process seeking resolution and finally wound up with one of the =fee for service= tax experts, who handled it for free because no-one else could figure out what was going on! The 'resolution' was to do as mentioned elsewhere: modify the data in the Capital Gains / Losses Worksheet. I had to go ahead and file before the aforementioned patch came out, and really didn't expect the issue to crop up again.

I am EXTREMELY upset with TurboTax!!

As others have said, we are perilously close to the filing deadline, and there is no excuse for not fixing a problem that has been reported by MANY people for at least two years!!!

Sharon92

My token number is 994484

Please help!

vishaln11

Token Number 1001637

zinan

same issue here, reference number 1002984, please help.

taxuser2109

Just checked, still no updates. Looks like they don't care at all. Is there a way to get a refund from turbotax? "Your satisfaction, guaranteed" is just for show on website.

pete43

412pm 4/15 and still not working on the website for me.

R1967S

TurboTax will not let you e-file withe ht Gross Sales Price error so I ended up printing my MA state tax instead of e-filing. I would feel very uncomfortable doing any work-arounds or manipulating the imported file that was reported to the IRS by the brokerage. TurboTax really has to correct this issue permanently. In real life people trade options and sometimes the trade is a loss.

platinumxsniper

I had trouble with Turbotax last year but it wasn't this bad. This is just a joke. I don't think I have ever seen such poor response to a software issue. Never coming back.

Dovjm1980

They promised by 4/15 - almost over EST. Turbo Tax should refund all of us for the software price. This is absolutely ridiculous for a company of this size.