Thanks Bill for the clarification!
Just submitted my own PA-40 and I can assure you I am Sorely Confused. The instructions were obviously written by a master codesmith as they say:
- PA-40
- Federal forms, W-2, then 1099-xxx (related to this thread!)
- PA-OC (doesn't apply to me)
- PA RK-1 - Well, I included the Federal K-1 as the instructions said to use it as I received no RK-1
- PA Schedules G-L - Don't have any of those
- And a great one: "All other required PA schedules and forms..."
- Followed by: "All other required documents, including federal schedules (where the instructions allow the use of federal schedules), that explain the information you entered."
Seems simple enough. But...so many questions, so few answers 🙂
- By the PA-40 do they mean just the first two pages?
- By "Federal Forms" do they mean the entire Federal return, or just the Federal 1040 2-pager, or something else entirely?
- For 1099-MISC / 1099-NEC - I ran a small side-business so I have those. But they are included on my Schedule C. So it's unclear if those physical 1099 forms should have been included in my package. I chose *not* to include them as my Schedule C already has them. Also, I suspect that if I included them in the package then the state would think I earned the income twice (once on Schedule C, and again as "other compensation"). At least that's how my local YATB explained it to me when I first filed in 2019 and thought I owed a bunch of extra local tax - it was because I included my PA Schedule C *and* the 1099 forms I received.
- The good old RK-1: I received a K-1 from the partnership, but TurboTax also created *two* PA RK-1 forms as part of my "documents for me to keep". Unclear which to provide! So - I provided the single physical K-1 I got from the partnership.
- Then the wonderfully-worded "All other required PA schedules and forms...". Gee...do I put my PA Schedules A-E here? Or would those PA Schedules go with PA-40?
- And finally "All other required documents, including federal schedules...". So do they mean random explanatory documents I feel like providing? Do they mean Federal Schedules A, C, D, etc.? Perhaps the novel I've been working on for several years? Unclear!
In my case:
- I wrote a cover letter explaining exactly what I included. That's page 1.
- Then I appended all my PA-40 and PA Schedules A-E. That's 11 pages.
- Then I included a copy of my single W-2 - so 1 more page.
- Then I included the Federal K-1 I received from partnership with its 2 pages of documentation - so another 3 pages total.
- Then I included my Federal 1040 complete tax return - another 20 pages.
- Finally - since TurboTax generated a PA RK-1 for me I included that. However - the single K-1 I received had to be entered *twice* into TurboTax: once for operating income and once for real-estate income. So I actually got *two* PA RK-1 forms for that single partnership. So I gave the state both 🙂 And that's another 10 pages.
I do not envy the poor soul in PA revenue dept that has to make sense of my 46-page return. But we does the best we can!
