TurboTax and Canada Workers Benefit: An intuitive story

Okay so this review is going to be more about an experience I had with TurboTax and the Canada Workers Benefit. For those who don’t know about the Canada Workers Benefit, it is a credit you can get if you or your family is low income (Made $32244 or less in 2021). For more information I have linked the direct page on the CRA website. You can apply and claim this by filling out the Schedule 6 form in your Tax Package.

TurboTax is great for those who are not trained in taxes, it makes it really easy especially since it is intuitive like its mother company is named after. But this year we hit a little glitch. After going through our taxes it looked liked we were going to get a good amount refunded, until we hit a question about applying for the Canada Workers Benefit. We didn’t have a yes or no question about wanting to apply for it. It just asked who would we like to have it applied to. When we picked my husband and answered the questions, the estimated refund just dropped. We had no idea what happened. So we decided to start from scratch and went through our taxes again. This time we skipped the page about the Canada Workers Benefit. Then we got to fixing errors. We got a question about if we were living together by December 31, 2021. We answered it. And then again our refund dropped. We figured out that the question was linked to the Canada Workers Benefit.

At this point we were frustrated because as according to the wording on TurboTax applying for the Benefit has no negative consequences. I took a look at the forms directly instead of the Easy Steps and noticed that the form was a little glitchy. I could change the “X” on if we wanted to apply for it but then it would automatically change back to yes we wanted to apply.

After doing some googling and looking at TurboTax’s forums, I decided to call them. We had a lovely lady help us and she helped show us how to clear and disable the Schedule 6 form. She did a quick look at our summary (they are able to share screen if you are doing it on Desktop) and she said our refund looked about right. She didn’t know why we were having an issue. Unfortunately the message they share is that it must have been something we checked off or had done as the software does not have issues. This messaging is frustrating. As it wasn’t the agent’s fault for the company’s messaging on issues, we let it go and thanked her for her time. If you would like to know how to clear the Schedule 6 form I have put directions below.

Since I like to figure out issues, I decided to do some investigating. I looked more into the Schedule 6 form to understand the math on how they calculate if you qualify and decided to start my taxes all over (for a 3rd time) to see when the Canada Workers Benefit got applied in TurboTax. To figure this out, after each step in “Easy Step” mode I would look at the Tax forms directly.

So when did it show up? Well the Schedule 6 form did not show in the list of forms at the beginning or in the first setting up steps. It showed up after we inputted our T4 slips. My guess is that since this Intuit product is Intuitive, it added the form just based on our T4. But the Canada Workers Benefit looks at all types of income, not just T4 to qualify. It may not be a technically glitch, but I do think it is a little deceiving since it calculates it before you actually fill out the form later on.

So if you know you do not qualify, how do you fix this glitch?
If you are in Easy Step go to Forms in the top Ribbon. In the Forms view, at the bottom of your screen you will see buttons labeled “Forms”.
Go to each Button (you will have 2 if doing yours and spouse) and find the Schedule 6 form. It is possible it will only show up under 1 person.
When you have it open, Go to “Edit” in the top ribbon. Then “Forms” then “Clear Current Form”.
Back in the Schedule 6 form, go to line 38102 and make sure it is checked off as No. If it is still under yes, click on the box that says “No” and press Enter.

If you have any issues I recommend contacting TurboTax directly to help you disable this form. The phone number is 1-888-829-8608.

In Review

Intuit Turbo Tax is very intuitive and applied the Canada Workers Benefit amount before actually asking if we would like to apply for it. If you don’t qualify it will make a drop in the refund when you fill out that form in Easy Steps. If you know you do not qualify you can disable this form right away by going into the actual Tax forms and manually clicking on No you are not applying for it. If you have questions or need more help with your Taxes, it is always good to check with CRA or a Tax Accountant.

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