"You told us the General Business Credit amount is $0 and the Eligible Small Business Credit amount is $95, for Code M on Box 15. Go back if you need to change the amounts."

[cathy_f]

I am filling out the K-1 Partner info in EasyStep, using the K-1 that came from the partnership's accountant.

After I fill in the information from the various boxes, TurboTax brings up a page which says:

"You told us the General Business Credit amount is $0 and the Eligible Small Business Credit amount is $95, for Code M on Box 15. Go back if you need to change the amounts."

I understand the "Code M on Box 15" part -- code M is "credit for increasing research activities."

I have no clue as to this "General Business Credit" thing that TurboTax says that I entered $0 for. I can't find anything anywhere in the forms or questionnaires that uses those words.

Because of the passive-aggressive wording, I have no idea whether TurboTax thinks I have definitely entered inconsistent numbers, might have entered inconsistent numbers, or is TurboTax just making idle chitchat?

I am mystified as to what TurboTax is asking and what TurboTax wants me to do.

[Critter-3 · Accepted solution]

Please use the following link to contact Customer Support for further assistance.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/what-is-the-turbotax-phone-number/00/25632

[cathy_f]

Thank you so much, Critter-3 -- I was able to read some instructions by following the link, and then when I was still confused I talked to a real live tax pro who helped me figure out the problem.

(In a nutshell, we have a $95 tax credit which can possibly go in two different categories. It could be that all $95 is a "General Business Credit" or all $95 is a "Small Business Credit" or it is possible that some is in one category and the remainder in another category. If it were a very large amount of money, the allocation might change what we owe, but since it is so small the credit has the same effect no matter what. On Monday I will contact the accountant and double check how it should be allocated, but since it's not a material difference it's not a big deal.)

[Mamadryad]

I have the same question in my 2022 taxes, and the TurboTax help line doesn't know what to tell me, either. This is not a solved question.

[RobertB4444]

@Mamadryad  This is a solved question if you just read the answer from @cathy_f above.  If TurboTax is giving you this response then it is asking you to allocate the amount in Box 15 Code M between General Business Credit and Small Business Credit.  The difference only matters if this amount is significant.

[cathy_f]

I realized that I never came back and gave the final update, which is that the reason for the confusion is that this wasn't our partnership tax form!

(My husband is a partner in a company that is a kind of tech incubator. He does a lot of work with one of the companies in particular. This S-1 was the S-1 for the incubator as a partner in the one particular company, and it was not OUR S-1 which is for him as a partner in the incubator. Once I got the correct form with the correct amounts in the correct boxes, all of my problems went away.)

This comes about from a very annoying characteristic of TT and S1 forms, which is that it asks you vague questions which don't use the box numbers or the form language, so you have to guess what info to put into what box. If TT had said "name in box X" then it would have said "that's not you -- it's not your form!"