BME
Level 3

Deductions & credits

@pk Thank you, I would have expected the program to behave just as you describe, but it didn't during my prep.  Not  sure why, or what to do about it going forward. 

 

I've done this foreign tax entry for years in Turbotax desktop ... even years when I was in a refund position and had an FTC carryover.  Still don't understand why Ttax failed to compute the FTC or its carryover.  To answer your points:

 

1.  Ttax never asked me if I wanted to carry over my FTC, as a carryback or a carryforward.  Perhaps because the program, erroneously as far as I can tell, computed the FTC to be 0.

 

2.  Agree that I should not have to use Form 1116 for the $56 of foreign tax I paid.  I only went down the Form 1116 rabbit hole because Ttax told me it did not "see" or recognize my foreign tax payment or the related div income.  I did my best to "reveal" those figures to the program, by manually entering them on Form 1116.  That did not work. 

 

3.  I get that my $56 in foreign taxes probably wouldn't generate an FTC when the regular "full blown" FTC limitation ratios of Form 1116 are applied -- I haven't delved into this part, as I should be in the Form 1116 exception safe harbor -- but I don't know how else other than on a Form 1116 to "reveal" the foreign taxes and related div income that the program kept telling me it could not see.  Perhaps by using Form 1116, I misled the program into concluding that I did not qualify for the "no Form 1116 needed" safe harbor?  No clue.    

 

Tell me, please, if possible:  Is there some OTHER way I should have entered the foreign taxes & related divs, such that the program would, in fact, "see" the pertinent figures, apply the pertinent safe harbor, and generate the correct FTC and related carryover?

 

Also, if this really is just a bug in the software, then, getting practical ... from a Ttax standpoint, how would you handle 2024 prep if you had to include an FTC carryover that the program missed in the prior year?    

 

Thanks so much.