I finally managed to get Turbotax to file as a simple trust by repeatedly going into the 1099-Div section. There I reported foreign tax paid for box 7. Box 8 was missing however. Later in the interview process I was asked what portion of the dividends was from a foreign country and if the dividends were from a RIC or Other Source. Initially I said RIC since that was indicated in the summary information for my 1099-DIV. I eventually discovered that I should have selected Other Source and then entered Various for the foreign countries (as shown on my 1099-DIV for box 8).
The section in Turbotax for entering 1099-DIV information is extremely confusing as written. Why not just provide the option of entering Various for box 8 when initially entering the 1099-DIV information?
Entering RIC seems to cause the simple trust to be automatically converted to a complex trust without any notification to the user. By going back, changing the trust back to a simple trust, and then changing RIC to Other when entering the 1099-DIV information I was able to get Turbotax to keep the trust as a simple trust.
The section for entering 1099-DIV when foreign taxes are involved needs work IMHO to make it clear to the user how to properly input the required information.
