Thanks again for all your assistance on this question. I also after looking more in the "income and wages" section, under "less common income", there is a section for "child income". Those interview questions ask me for the dividends and cap gains needed for the 8615. I had missed this section the first time and the error check only flags the income and tax amounts, and not the figures needed for calculating the the alternative taxable parent income using schedule D figures.
When I was doing the review and needed to enter the values TT flagged, I looked at the overall 8615 TT shows and it shows a richer form that the IRS shows (the richer fields is in the IRS instructions). I then went back to the step by step and was able to enter all the values needed to bring the kiddy tax down significantly. If I had just entered the 2 amounts and not switched to the forms view, I would have missed it.
Appreciate you noting that your not an expert in the 8615 form, but your help with the 1099Misc fellowship has greatly helped as I initially had it entered not on line 8r (it was down on 8z) and as a result it ended up with over $1000 additional taxes when mis-categorized. You first explanations on how to enter it on the educational summary and get it over on Schedule 1, line 8r was the difference maker for us.
