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Venting about Turbotax

Not sure if this belongs here... I used Turbotax, and when I downloaded my transactions from Vanguard, it had all my sales with cost basis of zero. Great. I contacted Intuit and I was told "Tough, you just have to enter the cost bases manually." Well, fine! However, at some point in the process I had gone into some form and overridden the cost basis. When I went to E-file, Turbotax told me I couldn't E-file with overridden data, and that I had to revise some worksheet that I couldn't even find. It also wouldn't let me E-file unless I entered the EIN for all my 1099's. I had a couple where I knew the amounts and of course reported it properly, but I hadn't actually gotten the form. (Having moved, sometimes my mail doesn't catch up with me.)

So much for E-filing. It also seemed like quite a hustle for them to say "Federal E-file is free - but oh, by the way, if you want to E- file your state return, that will be an extra $19.95."

Reply to
Hank Youngerman
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"Hank Youngerman" wrote

Probably had you not imported the stock sales data, you wouldn't have to enter all the EIN and other info, and of course, there wouldn't be any override entries being made. While I don't use Turbotax, amateur or pro editions, I haven't seen or heard of that data being necessary for e-file. There are always some capital transactions that don't have 1099-B's issued, so I can't see any software mandating that one be provided.

Reply to
paulthomascpa

Sounds like you should check with Vanguard to avoid this issue when you next have a sale. If they didn't have the basis, the field will show zero. Next, if you want to efile, you might want to take a breath and find the worksheet. The top of the schedule D offers a Quickzoom to capital Gain Transaction Worksheets. Overriding the way you did isn't a good idea, and would likely generate an error when you do the final review.

(Disclaimer - I am a guest poster at the TurboTax blog. I am not compensated, and paid for my copy of TT, 25 yrs now and counting.)

Joe

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Reply to
JoeTaxpayer

Same here! The only number they imported from my brokerage was total proceeds from sales of stock, which of course is the exact same number that my brokerage reported to me: no cost basis at all, none. Which makes that touted "import nums from broker" feature completely useless. Total BS.

I heard somewhere that brokers will have to provide cost-basis numbers sometime in the next few years. Does anyone actually know that the IRS will require this? When will it be available?

-- ben

Reply to
lcplben

Yep, part of a law passed a few years ago. Per CCH,

"Reporting will take effect for stock acquired in 2011, mutual funds acquired in 2012, and other securities acquired in

2013."

Note the word "acquired", not "sold". So, it won't magically make years or decades of missing cost basis information suddenly appear.

-Mark Bole

Reply to
Mark Bole

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