The Learn More on the Utah return says:
Enter any distribution from a qualified IRC Sec 401(a) retirement plan that is included in your federal AGI if, in the year it was paid into the plan, the amount was:
1. Not included in your federal AGI; and
2. Taxed by another state, D.C., the United States or a U.S. possession
In short, this says that you should enter any qualified plan distributions (which will be the vast majority of employer pension plans) so that it is not taxed in Utah, if it was (1) taxed this year on your federal return, and (2) when you made contributions to it, they were deducted/excluded on the federal return. For example, contributions to a 401(k) plan, these are excluded from Wages on your W-2., so you would enter distributions from the pension into this question in the Utah interview.
I am not sure at this point, but perhaps the amount can't be automatically transferred from the federal return, because the federal return doesn't know if the earlier contributions to the pension plan were taxed in another state (some state do).
In short, unless you know something, enter your 401(k) plan distributions into this question so that the amount of the distribution can be backed out of your state income.
P.S. "Wouldn't it be unusual for a state to tax amounts contributed to qualified benefit plans?" Actually, Pennsylvania and New Jersey are two states that do not allow for 401(k) plan contributions to be deducted, and there are possibly others.
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