Self Employed Tax Deferral

[MelanieR53]

My client has a schedule C. The SE Tax Deferral was calculated to be $1,757.

They signed the 8879 April 12, showing a refund of 5,446. 

For whatever reason, we e-filed the return over a month later, May 23. The refund on the e-filed return was 3,689. The difference is the 1,757 se tax deferral. 

Why would this have disappeared? Was there a ProSeries update some time in there which would have changed this deferral? I have not found anything that says the law (and therefore the 1040) changed, that would affect the SE Tax Deferral. 

The client is questioning why their refund was short. 

Has anyone else had this problem? 

[abctax55]

If your client was overpaid, there isn't (shouldn't have been) a SE tax deferral.  It only comes in to play if there's a balance owed (after withholding, estimates, EIP amounts,  and/or extension payment).

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

This has been a common issue for preparers that didnt read the rules. 

As mentioned above, you can't defer the SE taxes if they have already been paid, showing a refund on the return means they were already paid.

Would have been nice for ProSeries to flag (or even disallow) this situation, or maybe it did flag it in the Diagnostics?   I didn't have any clients that were interested in deferring, so I didnt see this when running through Review.

[qbteachmt]

The deferral is not also refundable. That's not provided for. The option to defer what was owed was to help people keep cash to make ends meet.

[MelanieR53]

Thank you!

[MelanieR53]

Thank you everyone for your responses. 

RA

[MelanieR53]

Normally on our Schedule C filers, ProSeries did disallow the credit if the client was already getting a refund. But for some reason it was not disallowed on this particular client. I haven't figured out why.