Form 8615

[jasdlm]

I totally don't get this (yes, I read the instructions). When I put in the parents taxable income, a number is calculated by ATX and put into line 9. I put the parents' tax in line 10, and the Schedule then shows the child owing $5000 in tax on $3000 of income! When I read the instructions, it says to calculate the tax on line 8 according to the parents' tax rate, including appropriate cap gain/dividend treatment. So, assuming only 1 child, how is that different from the line 44 number that number 10 asks for? If I put the Parents info on both lines (9 and 10), the tax owed by the child is 0. Sheesh . . . what am I not understanding?

[michaelmars]

line 9 includes the income of all children filing 8615 thus its the family income as a whole

line 10 is the tax on the parents return

the difference is the tax atributable to the kids returns.

if required make sure you complete line 9 using the family sch d worksheet. on this sheet you treat all income as one big return.

Now that atx exports k-1's maybe they will link parents and kids for automatical calc of the 8615. its something prosys fx does very well.

[jasdlm]

Thanks so much. Your reply was really helpful.

What a pain that Form is. I agree that it would be great if all those numbers could link! Espcially today. I'm working remotely and don't have a printer, so I keep having to flip back and forth between returns. Aaargh!

[Lion EA]

I remember my days at Block with a couple of families with three children each with investment income. I'd wait until everyone else went home and then complete parents on my computer and child one on another computer and so on and then literally go around in circles entering data from each return into the 8615 on every other return until complete; I think three kids meant three circuits until I had final info on each. Or just print out the relevant pages from the parents' return or complete it and print that final copy. I love how easy it now is on Prosys fx!

[jasdlm]

You 2 are making me envious on the Prosys fx!!! Lion . . . I love your 4 computer story!!

[Lion EA]

Of course, if you've gone to multiple monitors, you may be able to have all the returns open at once in your home office! Just put a post-it on each monitor with the name of the person, especially now that it's April and we're sleep deprived and lose our place more easily. (I bought two new monitors on sale, but they're still in their boxes waiting for me to find spare time.)

It was my first or second year with Prosys fx with just about three days to go before Tax Day, and I had about nine returns left: parents, two sons, and trusts for each son, and a husband/wife partnership, personal return, two more sons, and a 90+ page Form 1099-B. With importing the Excel spreadsheet from the broker and just clicking to export/import K-1s from the trusts and the partnerships and just clicking to complete the kiddie tax forms, it took longer to print the client copies than it did to prepare the returns! I actually woke up my husband to tell him how I was really, really glad I spent the money for top-tier software. (Of course, he was on vacation that week or that wouldn't have been a good move.) Eat your heart out, jasdlm! :P

[michaelmars]

another big advantage of prosystem is you can have multiple returns open [ i have 3 screens] atx you are still limited to one return at a time./ but if the parents are done you can open a pdf of their return on a screen as you do the kids on another.

[Lion EA]

I really need to set up my new monitors!

[jasdlm]

Is Prosys fx forms based or worksheet based?

[michaelmars]

worksheet-which is why i use atx for my side practise, its much faster entry on the simple returns. but of course with fx you hit the print button and then put a staple in the output, none of this selecting each form you want/don'

t want every time

[Lion EA]

And, you do have options for data entry as interview, worksheet, and even on the government forms; and it's just a toggle to go back and forth between views. I spent my first year in interview, thinking it was similar to HRB. But, second year I went cold turkey to worksheet as fitting my style much better. Of course, I toggle to a form once in a while to make sure something landed where I expected. But, my first check is usually the two-year comparison (with sub comparisons with detail for things like Schedule C, E, and F). I love that things with multiple entries, Schedule B as an example, can be viewed as a spreadsheet so I can see what might be missing or what differs from last year or even import/export using Excel and also can be viewed in detail per item that looks like Form 1099-INT in this example. When I've had part-time data entry people, they did better using the IRS form such as Form 1099-INT so they could match it more closely to the client's documents. I toggle to detail if I have to enter something less common, such as opting out of bonus depreciation, but otherwise stay in the spreadsheet view to be able to see all the lines in the depreciation schedule, for instance. It has a lot of flexibility in how you work and in how others can work on your same computer.