Schedule 8 - Self-Employed Not Populating in Standard Download

[GrammieGTax]

Schedule 8 is not populating for Self-Employed individuals in TurboTax 2019 Standard Download Version.  Is there an error in the program? I've checked the my program is up to date and and that didn't fix it ether.  Getting frustrated.

[Telepromptress]

I had the same problem last year with Standard, and again this year with Home and Business.  Spoke to someone at Turbo Tax last year and they didn't know why it was happening nor did they have a solution except to override the field.  However, overriding the field  apparently makes your return ineligible for Netfile so I ended up buying UFile software and using that, with no problems!  Are you reading this Intuit?  I hoped it was just a an anomaly that would not happen again this year, but fool me twice, shame on me! This is the last time I will buy Turbo Tax software.

[GrammieGTax]

I switched to Ufile for this return as well.  I'm second guessing using TurboTax in future.. I've used them for the past 10 years and this year I have had issues with Schedule 6 and Schedule 8 with no fix from TurboTax.  I would think they would fix the error, but I guess they don't care.  So now I have Netfiled 2 returns this year with errors in them from TurboTax.  It's frustrating.  I thought I could rely on TurboTax for correct returns but am wondering now.

[rifffi]

I have this exact issue right now. I have been using TurboTax for years and never had this problem before. 

[Telepromptress]

Hi rifffi,

I was actually able to get it to work a couple of weeks ago.  It turned out my issue was that I have several sources of income that make up my self-employment.  One of those sources is a contract situation where I'm paid by an agency through their payroll system.  They deduct income tax, EI and CPP and send me a T4. The trouble with that is they put the income in BOX 81 and the T2125 Business form tells you to list income from BOX 81 on the 3rd line in Part 3A "Self employment Income reported on T4 slips (Box 81, 82, or 83)"

When I ran through the Final Review an error came up telling me to put that amount on a separate T2125 Business form.  I did that and problem solved.  Part 5 of Schedule 8 populated correctly.  I realized that this T4 had already been inputted into the software, with the deductions accounted for, including the CPP contribution, so that income amount needed to be separate from my other self-employment income in order for the software to account for the contribution in the correct place, and in doing that, allowed the rest of the income to be allocated correctly.  Does that make sense?  It was the BOX 81 designation that really screwed things up.  They should tell you to use a separate form up front, and not bury that information.  I guess they don't account for situations like mine where someone gets paid by different kinds of companies that use different accounting situations.  

Sorry for the long winded reply.  I hope it was at least a bit helpful.

Good luck.

Jill

[GrammieGTax]

Thank you for your response Jill.  I just removed the T4 amount for box 81 and put the amount into the Sales box and then it populated everything correctly for schedule 8.  Appreciate your response as I wasn't finding anything to help correct my issue.  They only have income from this one business, so not sure why it wasn't working.  

[rifffi]

Hi @jill,

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond on this. Your fix didn't apply to my exact scenario unfortunately, but I did get in touch with tech support and WAS able to find a fix as follows:

- I went to Schedule 8 in forms mode, scrolled to line 1 in Part 4 (the line that was not being automatically populated from field 13500 (Business Income) on my T1

- when I double-clicked on line 1 of clause 4 it took my to my T1 where I could indeed see that field 13500 of the T1 was populated

- so I went back to schedule 8, back to clause 4, left clicked on field 1 just once

- then Edit, Form Overrides, Set Field Override

- then you can manually enter in a value for field 1

Not sure if that will prevent me from Efiling or not as others have suggested, but it does solve the input issue.

[NotGAP]

So this still doesn't work for 2020 home and business edition.

So your telling me the only answer is to switch to ufile?

[Telepromptress]

Hi NotGap,

Short answer: If you do have a T4 with an amount in Box 81,82,or 83, I would try using a separate T2125 B form. If you don't have Box 81 income then my solution might not help.

Long answer:

I've since discovered that in my case, the reason Sched 8 wouldn't populate was because one of my T4 slips had an amount in Box 81. Inputting that amount on the same T2125 (B1) form as my other self-employment income and Box 48 amounts from my T4A's was the problem.  It seems Box 81 pretty much told that whole form that all that income was employment income, since the earnings from that client that used the Box 81 to report that particular income also deducted taxes and cpp on that income at source.  Make sense?  The solution was to open another T2125 (B2) form and input the Box 81 amount on that form, separately, all by itself.  Make sense?  Not really, I know.  Why does Turbo Tax even include T4 Box 81 amounts on the  T2125B forms?  Good question.  UFILE doesn't, and they use the government approved forms. Maybe because it's still considered self-employment income even though taxes are deducted at source. Box 81 amounts are for "Agency" workers, meaning people under contracts with agencies.  In my case that one client had all their freelancers put on contract with an agency and we were paid through that agency... to simplify things for their accounts payable apparently. I've since gone off contract and become a "vendor" so no more Box 81's for me!

Even though I had no issues with UFILE, I've since gone back to using Turbo Tax mainly because it's the evil that I know and I like the layout of the software a bit better.

Hope this was (even a bit) helpful.

Good luck. 🙂

J. 

[NotGAP]

No T4, sadly.

I actually like turbotax and have been willing to pay a premium for it for many years.
But it’s got to work.

Anyway thanks for the input.