Amend 2018 tax return

[PAT13CPA]

How do you amend a 2018 federal return for cancelled debt on a personal residence.  This was included as income in the originally filed return.  The provision was extended in December 2019 to exclude debt incurred to acquire or improve a personal residence.  I now need to amend the 2018 return to exclude that cancellation of debt income.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Assuming you prepared the original return, open the return and then open the 1040X and fill in the year at the top to activate the form...this should reset the refund meter to zero, then go back to the 1040 and make the changes.

[PAT13CPA]

To clarify my question the software does not appear to be updated for the fact that income from the cancellation of home acquisition debt is no longer taxable income.  When you answer all the questions indicating it is home acquisition debt it is still taxing the loan forgiveness.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Yes, we're all still waiting for 2018 to be updated for the extenders that were put into place Dec 19th.   

Intuit pushed the 2018 updates to the furthest back burner when the coronavirus happened.

For your situation, you may be able to fix it up with some overrides, since it doesn't really change any of the tax form line numbers (like the PMI needs to have Sch A changed)...but then again, the backlog of paper filed returns that have been stacking up at IRS the past 6 weeks with nobody working on mailed in returns, Im not sure mailing anything in right now would be wise.....