diff --git a/Lib/tarfile.py b/Lib/tarfile.py
index e2b60532f693d4..7311fa1613c61e 100755
--- a/Lib/tarfile.py
+++ b/Lib/tarfile.py
@@ -2232,6 +2232,8 @@ def makelink(self, tarinfo, targetpath):
         try:
             # For systems that support symbolic and hard links.
             if tarinfo.issym():
+                if os.path.lexists(targetpath):
+                    os.unlink(targetpath)
                 os.symlink(tarinfo.linkname, targetpath)
             else:
                 # See extract().
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py b/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
index cae96802ded67e..54916c47d6bb70 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_tarfile.py
@@ -755,6 +755,18 @@ def test_compare_members(self):
         finally:
             tar1.close()
 
+    @support.skip_unless_symlink
+    def test_symlink_overwrite(self):
+        # Test for issue #40049: Extracting a symlink over an existing file
+        # in stream mode causes a backwards seek
+        sympath = os.path.join(TEMPDIR, 'symtype2')
+        pathlib.Path(sympath).touch()
+        try:
+            self.tar.extract('symtype2', TEMPDIR)
+            self.assertTrue(os.path.islink(sympath))
+        finally:
+            pathlib.Path(sympath).unlink(missing_ok=True)
+
 class GzipStreamReadTest(GzipTest, StreamReadTest):
     pass
 
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-03-27-20-49-32.bpo-40049.8079ca.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-03-27-20-49-32.bpo-40049.8079ca.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..48cca7e5c0787d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-03-27-20-49-32.bpo-40049.8079ca.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+The :mod:`tarfile` module now checks for an existing symlink before creating a
+new one during extraction. This prevents premature scanning of the  
+archive and errors when extracting from a stream.