Discussion:ProSeries handling of college expenses on state returns
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Discussion Forum Index --> Tax Questions --> ProSeries handling of college expenses on state returns
| 19 February 2007 | |
| I'm a first year user of Proseries and find this kind of annoying so before I rant and rave (which won't do any good)... I was wondering if I need to click yet another Proseries option to have the federal information for college expenses/qualifying students transfer to the state returns or do, I have to reneter the information for the state returns. I prepare a few NYS and Mass returns which provide for deduction/credit of some sort but, the information doesn't seem to flow from the federal return...am I missing something. Thanks for any input. | |
| 19 February 2007 | |
| For Wisconsin I have to reenter the information for the state returns. In most cases the state Tuition credit is figured completely different that the Federal credit. | |
| 19 February 2007 | |
| I realize that the states may have different methodologies for determining the credit or deduction but, the basic information needed for determining the credit or deduction should be the same (qualfying student, tuition paid, adrress of school ect...). To me it makes no sense that ProSeries wouldn't transfer this infomation to the state(s).
To the forum moderator...any thoughts or comments about this? | |
| 19 February 2007 | |
| For the Michigan State tax return the automatic transfer wouldn't work. We have a list of specified colleges that qualify for the credit and these change every year. | |
| February 19, 2007 | |
| No, the info for the states has to be reentered. And ProSeries is not smart enough to enter the qualifying students' names from the Federal return. | |
| February 19, 2007 | |
| I've never worked on or used ProSeries, so I don't think I am qualified to answer, JEllegate. Have you tried the ProSeries Forum at http://accountant.intuit.com/ ?
- Tim Doyle, TaxAlmanac Moderator - Talk to me 15:33, 19 February 2007 (CST) | |
| 20 February 2007 | |
| The Wisconsin return does not require the students name so ProSeries does not have to be smart enough to enter the qualifying students' names from the Federal return. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 20 February 2007 |
| Each state has different rules: you can see the mess automatic transfer can make in the past when Proseries would transfer real estate tax to the Illinois return whether a resident or not. I think they now let you opt out. Proseries doesn't automatically give an extra exemption to NJ Residents with a child in college either. What a letdown; we actually have to do some thinking! | |
| 21 February 2007 | |
| To Tim Doyle - aren't Pro Series and Lacerte both owned by the same Company...that you work for? I'm simply asking a question about whether the data can be transferred or not by clicking an option on the Program.
To D&T - I kind of like to keep my "thinking" power available for issues and minimizing the tax effects of my client's transactions. I bought the software to assist with the mechanical calculations involved with preparing returns so I don't have to use up all of my thinking power on checking each return for names/addresses/ages/ qualifying this and that and so forth. It's enough of a hassle to have to figure out who qualifies for what and get that into the return so, I kind of just want to have the software put the data in the right places...which would include transferring the student data to state returns that use it. I realize we're not talking about a FASTTAX product here (or whatever the heck it was that we used at E&Y when I was there many moons ago) that did an excellent job and cost BIG $, but, one would hope that Intuit would undertake programming steps to make the mechanical aspects of tax preparation as effiecient as possible for us. I suppose the old adage applies that "you get what you pay for." | |
| February 21, 2007 | |
| What "bugs" me is proseries doen't check the boxes for the family credit on KY for children that are listed on the Federal that live in the household. I know D&T I have to think. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 21 February 2007 |
| But how many times do upper middle class parents give you college expenses and you can't use them because of income limits, so they would not get transferred anyway, or do you still fill in the 8863?
Another evil of automatic transfer: do an 8814 or two for a NJ couple's children and then do their California non-resident return and there is the 8814 on California though the children aren't anywhere near the state. So you get rid of the excess income, but try to get rid of the base tax on the second $850 or whatever the amount is. Transferring works both ways. They've made some progress with the MASS non-resident, giving us easier ways to eliminate non-Mass gains etc, but I used to find it easier to do the return on Superform or by hand since everything came over whether needed or not. | |
| 21 February 2007 | |
| What you should be considering is this: The computer is just an extension of the hand that used to put the figures on the tax form many moons ago. Knowing what and were to put the figures on the forms is what made you a tax preparer. It seem that in this day and age a tax preparer wants the computer to do all the work and THINKING for them. Does anyone out there remember the zero tape? | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 21 February 2007 |
| I remember using Whiteout to go over mistakes, and the erasable pen, and doing passive loss worksheets by hand, or computing excludable sick pay.....but the zero tape? I guess that meant adding multiple W-2s and then subtracting same to see if you arrived at zero. My boss at the time would pay people to do that, but we still add the W-2s again, and the withholding. | |
| 21 February 2007 | |
| The zero tape method was to go through the entire return, if I remember correctly from the 1970's ... all income was a + and all deductions were a - and when you got done, if the return was correct you ended up with a zero tape. Boy, how times have changed. | |
| February 21, 2007 | |
| I've had two states since yesterday (New Mexico and Mississippi) where the state withholding tax entered on the Federal worksheets for Form 1099-MISC (for royalties) and W-2G (for gambling winnings) did not transfer correctly to the states under state tax withheld. I had to override the blank field on the MS return, and I had to enter the state withholding in the blank field on the NM return. I entered NM and MS for the state codes on the Federal worksheets. | |
| February 21, 2007 | |
| I worked for the MI Dept of Treasury during the 1970 tax season (for 1969 returns), in my senior year of high school. My job from 5 to 9 pm was to add up the refunds in batches of 50 and verify the day personnel's machine tape that was clipped to each batch. What a fun job that was! I think that's when I learned how to use a calculator (or adding machine, as it was called back then) quickly. That was the year that we got about a foot of snow on April 1st. We were sent home at 11 am that day. I gave my supervisor a ride home in Lansing somewhere, and then I got stuck in the snow a block from my house in Potterville. Yea, I walked home from there.
That job was much better than when I worked at MESC (the unemployment office) twice in my prior life. I couldn't believe how many files couldn't be found in the file cabinets for people standing in line waiting for their weekly checks. | |
| February 21, 2007 | |
| We used pencils and was aways out of eraser. You think it bad when you have a return completed and the client says "oh I forgot to metion" nothing compared to when you had to redo it all by hand. | |
| 21 February 2007 | |
| I just wonder if we should ask Tim if we could start an Ole boy & girls club? | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 21 February 2007 |
| Deb: You never 'change listed' the US Army Payroll for all the trainees at Ft Jaxson SC circa summer 1968. The idea was to give each payroll officer the exact amount of bills to pay each of his 200-225 men with the smallest amount of bills [$90 was 4 20s, 1 $10]. This was done manually be me, thumbing through all the pay vouchers of each company, then compiling them on a master sheet so the Finance Office could bring the proper bills from the bank for each company. There were usually 8-9 Basic Training companies in session of 225 men each, plus 16-20 companies of advanced infantry, cook training, motor pool and two others.....all to be reduced to the total number of bills, and on quadruplicate NCR paper form. I did this three months....I cannot remember how long it took but it helped that all the payrolls did not come in at one time. All this without Excel or anything but a ten key adding machine. One month one of my master numbers was on a black line on one of the copies so that the wrong number of some bill was brought, and when cash was divvied out, it was wrong. It was easy to rectify and did not come out of my $290 a month paycheck for being Specialist Fifth Class, draftee status. Damn, I was good.....missed my calling.
Of course, then on payday instead of sending in 'lifer' sergeants, the young second Looeys would come into the Finance office, pistols grasped, as if Viet Cong Charley was nearby, to pick up the money.....now that made me nervous! | |
| February 21, 2007 | |
| Sw - I did taxes manually using carbons in clients' homes from 1976 through 1985 (had an appt every hour from 8 am through 7 pm, and I brought several home, too, and had to make about 20 phone calls every night when I got home)--and then did them manually from 1986 through 1989 in my home office, using a copy machine and not carbons, so I'm familiar with having to redo tax returns manually. Actually, I never used pencils and have always used black Bic pens.
The last year I drove to clients' homes was in 1985--had 610 clients that year, and it was rough. I should think of those years (driving through snow banks and over ice, etc., from house to house, city to city, stopping at McDonalds twice a day for a double cheeseburger and fries) when I think I have it rough now sitting here in one place using a computer, eating bologna sandwiches. I'm just so happy that I'm done with appointments now (starting yesterday)...all are drop-offs and mail-ins from now on. Even though they are bigger returns, it is much less stressful. | |
Bottom Line (talk|edits) said: | 22 February 2007 |
| D&T - that reminds me of a story my father told. He was a Carrier Pilot in the South Pacific during WWII. His pay was $102 and they would give him a $100 bill and a $2 bill. Of course no retailer would ever be willing to break the $100 bill because they'd lose all their change. He said it was murder buying a pack of smokes after your $2 bill was gone. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 22 February 2007 |
| If I recall, it was not THAT simple since I think the largest bill was a $20. But then the Basic Trainee earned 90.60 a month. | |
Bottom Line (talk|edits) said: | 22 February 2007 |
| Apparently $100's were more common in the 1940's than they were up until recently. | |
| 22 February 2007 | |
| Gees, did this ever get blown out of proportion but, since we're on the topic...I do remember the zero tape method as well and preparing returns by hand and filling out FAST TAX data input sheets and learning several generations of software packages. I'm sure happy those days are behind me. Which is why I'm annoyed with some of the shortcomings of Pro Series...like the college expense data transfer issue that I inquired about. On one side I suppose that you could argue that would be part of the "thinking process" and I am thinking about it every $%#@ time that I have to reenter the same data on the state tax return! On the other side, I'd argue that it's a bit of laziness or lack of fine tuning on the part of the Intuit Programmers with respect to the software. I'm actually not expecting that the program will do any thinking for me...I do that and that's what I get paid for...which is why I go through the effort to ask about college expenses and gather the data and determine if it applies for the client...the software didn't help me do that. As far as preparing the return goes though I look to the software to make me more efficient and transferring data to all relevant parts of the returns helps me be more efficient...I'd like the software to accomodate me in that manner. I'm waiting for someone to comment that if I'm not satisfied I could always go back to preparing the returns by hand!! | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 22 February 2007 |
I would not wish that on anyone.....worse, you could prepare them by hand and have them typed with carbon paper. When I visit my Philadelphia office, where I do not have a printer, I sometimes do local taxes by hand so the client can sign them and give me a check to pay them when we process them. As I do them, I politely tell the client to shut up so I can concentrate. The trend in forms now is optical scanning, so fitting my sloppy writing into the little blocks which I can barely see since they are printed in this faint blue color, makes me growl, and worse, then I read 'USE A BLACK PEN' and I am writing in blue.
I think we all get frustrated at times. The first software I examined did not transfer the Sch C profit to the SE but it seemed so great that your list of interest and dividend payers would repeat the next year, or that when you did the return of Tomas Witold Tozolowsky & Anna Maria Bragiola the names would appear on every page. There are returns I do where I wish I had more 'robust software' but just for those returns; for many 1040s such expense would like the proverbial elephant gun to kill the mouse. | |
| February 24, 2007 | |
JEllegate wrote:
Yes, ProSeries and Lacerte are both offered by Intuit, and I do work for Intuit. I started work for the company called Lacerte back in 1989 and stuck around at Intuit after the acquisition. Because I actually worked on the Lacerte product, I have a bit of knowledge about it, but I haven't actually worked on that for about 5 years now, so my knowledge of it is quickly fading. I have never worked on the ProSeries product, so I know hardly any details of how it works, etc. TaxAlmanac is a site about Tax Research, and there aren't any employees who regularly review it to answer questions about the Lacerte or ProSeries products. We don't mind if you ask questions about the tax products, as long as you understand that this is not an official means of obtaining product help. We do have product-specific forums where people knowledgeable about the product are watching and can jump in to answer your questions. You can access those at http://accountant.intuit.com/ and selecting the Communities tab. The reason I can't answer your question is because I have no idea what the answer is. - Tim Doyle, TaxAlmanac Moderator - Talk to me 17:40, 24 February 2007 (CST) | |
