I used TurboTax for reporting a new QOF investment. (didn't think through closing a QOF investment, but I have years before I have to figure that out). After reading this blog, I purchased TaxAct, but I was unhappy with it, so went back to TurboTax. Here is what I did:
TurboTax does four things: (1) it provides data entry; (2) it rolls things up; (3) it generates PDF forms; (4) it checks everything. To make things work I needed to modify 1 PDF form, plus create 1 PDF form, but TurboTax could then be used for everything else (my other 43 pages).
For QOF (QOZ) Data Entry
1) Navigate to "personal\investement income\stocks, mutual funds, bonds, other"
2) Click on "Add More Sales
3) Click "no" when asked, "did you get a 1099-B or a brokerage statement"
4) Click, "I'll enter one sale at a time"
5) Enter: Description: The EIN of your fund
6) Enter: Date Acquired
7) Enter: Sale Proceeds (enter a negative amount) for the QOF
😎Select Short Term/Long Term
That will create a new 1099-B for the QOF. It will also correctly reduce your investment income in TurboTax and as far as I can tell roll up correctly to other forms.
The 1099-B then needs to be edited in a PDF editor, or just create a substitute. Column F in the PDF needs to have Z entered. The value in column D needs to be deleted. That should then match the requirements on page 11 of the IRS instructions. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8949.pdf.
Form 8997 needs to be created manually. But this form is short, and the values at least for a new QOZ investment don't seem to roll up anywhere else. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8997
I was using the QOZ to defer short-term capital gains from stock sales as well as short-term and long-term capital gains from 1256 Futures Contracts. The 1256 deferral is also done on form 8949. Say 50K short-term investment sales, and 50K futures contracts. Futures contracts are taxes 60/40 long-term/short-term capital gains. That means 50K + .4*50K = 70K short-term and .6*50K = 30K long-term. So two separate lines on the 8949, one for the short-term and one for the long-term deferral per the "QOF Data Entry" above.
I'm not a tax expert, but that seems to have worked for getting my taxes filed with the right amounts, and with the forms filled out as best I could interpret the IRS instructions.
