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February 24, 2020
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Ohio Tax military credit

  • February 24, 2020
  • 4 replies
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I am an Ohio permanent resident, and active-duty stationed in Texas. 

On the Ohio IT 1040, I checked that I am a Full-Time Resident of Ohio.  

I entered my W2 military pay on Schedule A, Line 26 which is for 'Military pay received by Ohio residents while stationed outside Ohio'.

 

I am getting an error message that says:

"Schedule A, Line 26: Military pay received by Ohio residents should be blank.  You indicated that you are a Nonresident of Ohio.  You cannot claim the Military deduction that is allowed for a full-time Ohio resident."

 

Is this an programming error in TurboTax or am I doing something wrong? 

Please advise what I need to do.

    Best answer by timbiehle

    This issue is definitely a Turbo-Tax programming error within the Ohio part of the TurboTax Premium program.

    The problem occurs when filing jointly and the primary person (the member of the Military) is an Ohio Resident stationed outside of Ohio, but the spouse is a resident of  another state. 

    In our case, I am an Ohio Resident stationed in Texas and my spouse is a Texas resident. 

    Ohio does not tax military pay received by Ohio residents while stationed outside Ohio.

     

    Apparently TurboTax is erroneously overriding my status to Non-Resident (my spouse's status), and consequently disallows deducting my Texas earnings from Ohio Income.

    This even occurs if the spouse had no earnings. I tested this by temporarily deleting her W2's.

    The error disappears if I change the spouse status to be an Ohio resident.  I tested this.

     

    I will be submitting my Ohio return via US Mail, and thereby by-passing the TurboTax error message.  This will enable our Ohio Taxes to be ZERO for our joint return. ZERO tax for me since I am Military stationed outside Ohio, and ZERO tax for my spouse because she is a Texas resident and her Texas earnings are not taxable by Ohio (and also ZERO in Texas since Texas doesn't have a state income tax.)

    !!! I called the Ohio Tax division today and they confirmed that I am handling this correctly, and that the TurboTax error message is erroneous.

    REQUEST:  Could one of you please escalate this TurboTax programming issue to the attention to your technical experts so that it can be corrected and a TurboTax update issued.   I need to avoid my fellow military members from encountering this TurboTax issue and wasting hours trying to figure this out and potentially paying Taxes that is not their liability.

     

    4 replies

    Hal_Al
    February 24, 2020

    Try this:  Go back to the personal info section and indicated that you were a full year resident of Ohio. Do not say you lived in any other state or earned income in any other state. 

    timbiehleAuthor
    February 26, 2020

    That's not the root cause of my issue.  I have confirmed with the Ohio Department that I have entered all information correctly and the error message is caused by a TurboTax programming issue.

    Please see my update that I just posted in this message stream.

    DawnC
    February 24, 2020

    Check that in the personal info section, you have indicated your resident state as OH.  Texas should be your mailing address only.  Then go back through the state section and make sure you are starting out with an OH resident return.  

     

    It sounds like your personal information is not correct on the Federal return, and because of that, TurboTax is generating the wrong form for OH.  To verify this, click on My Info in the left side menu and after entering your Texas address, mark the Military box and choose OH as your resident state. This should fix your state return.   The first question in the state return should verify the type of return (resident vs. non-resident) you are filing there.   

     

    And thank you for your service!  

    **Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"
    February 24, 2020

    I am having the same issue as the OP. Under "My Info" I clicked I am a member of the Armed Forces. In section 2 of the "My Info" page, it asks for the state of residency and I clicked Ohio. A few windows forward, it asks me where I was stationed and that is US territory from Jan 2019-June 2019 and NC from June 2019 to current. It asks for my current mailing address and I have put our NC mailing address and a family member's mailing address in OH. Neither of them have fixed the error. On the state tax section I am claiming full residency. It asks to confirm the Ohio mailing address but my mailing address is in NC. It takes me to "Here's the Income Ohio handles differently" "Military stationed outside of Ohio" and it shows my earning for 2019. I don't have any other deductions or credits so I press "Done with Income". I click "Done with credits and taxes" because they don't apply. I bypass another page that doesn't apply to me. I get to the page where I click 'Let's Check it over".  It comes back with "We have found one item on your Ohio return where we will need you to review your entry". I click "Fix Return". The next window shows this error:

     

    Schedule A: Line 26 Military pay received by OH residents should be blank. You indicated that you are a Nonresident of Ohio. You cannot claim the Military deduction that is allowed for a full-year Ohio resident. You can take the "Compensation earned by nonresident military servicemembers" deduction. You may need to return to the Income Interview Topic to correct.

     

    I zero out the amount on Line 26 and I watch my Ohio return amount go down by $2300. I should be receiving all the state return money back, not partial. So, I try to find the Income Interview Topic. I end up going to the Ohio Return Income section. There's nothing on there pertaining to military. 

     

    I start my Ohio return all over again and click "Go over Ohio again."

     

    Residency Status: Yes

    County: Franklin

     

    School District: Grandview Hts

    Confirm Oh address: lists NC mailing address (I've tried it with the OH address and it still didn't work)

    Military Stationed Outside of Ohio....entered dollar amount

    Click done with Income 

     

    I click through the other categories that don't apply and it comes up with the same error for Schedule A: Line 26. 

     

    Please tell me this a bug that is being worked out? 

    timbiehleAuthor
    February 24, 2020

    Yep, that is the same problem I have.  

    DawnC
    February 24, 2020

    Your My Info section should look like this - 

     

    **Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"
    timbiehleAuthorAnswer
    February 26, 2020

    This issue is definitely a Turbo-Tax programming error within the Ohio part of the TurboTax Premium program.

    The problem occurs when filing jointly and the primary person (the member of the Military) is an Ohio Resident stationed outside of Ohio, but the spouse is a resident of  another state. 

    In our case, I am an Ohio Resident stationed in Texas and my spouse is a Texas resident. 

    Ohio does not tax military pay received by Ohio residents while stationed outside Ohio.

     

    Apparently TurboTax is erroneously overriding my status to Non-Resident (my spouse's status), and consequently disallows deducting my Texas earnings from Ohio Income.

    This even occurs if the spouse had no earnings. I tested this by temporarily deleting her W2's.

    The error disappears if I change the spouse status to be an Ohio resident.  I tested this.

     

    I will be submitting my Ohio return via US Mail, and thereby by-passing the TurboTax error message.  This will enable our Ohio Taxes to be ZERO for our joint return. ZERO tax for me since I am Military stationed outside Ohio, and ZERO tax for my spouse because she is a Texas resident and her Texas earnings are not taxable by Ohio (and also ZERO in Texas since Texas doesn't have a state income tax.)

    !!! I called the Ohio Tax division today and they confirmed that I am handling this correctly, and that the TurboTax error message is erroneous.

    REQUEST:  Could one of you please escalate this TurboTax programming issue to the attention to your technical experts so that it can be corrected and a TurboTax update issued.   I need to avoid my fellow military members from encountering this TurboTax issue and wasting hours trying to figure this out and potentially paying Taxes that is not their liability.