Schedule C in Prior Years - Form Deleted - Home & Business Migrating to Premier?

I was formerly self-employed.  I used home & business for many years.  I discontinued my self-employment and deleted Schedule C from H&B for 2018.  Among other things, my return showed sale of business property having nothing to do with my self-employment.  It's the only item showing on the Business dashboard tab.  It's not immediately clear to me where this information is captured in my return.  Do I need to continue to use H&B?  If not, will my 2018 return with Schedule C deleted migrate cleanly to Premier?  

Investors & landlords

You should be fine with Premier (desktop) since the desktop versions contain all of the forms. You might get some sort of "nag" that you have downgraded but that should be about it. You can always upgrade from within the program should you find it necessary.

 

Since you have 2018 Home & Business installed now, you can enter Forms Mode and check the list of forms in your return.

Investors & landlords

Since ALL the downloaded versions have ALL the same forms and can handle ALL the same situations you never really "needed" the H&B version ... you can always use the Deluxe version ( Basic if you don't need a state return) to save a couple of bucks  ... the only reason for upgrading to a higher version is if you need extra guidance entering in info.  

Carl
Level 15

Investors & landlords

First, understand that the 2019 version of Turbotax is ***NOT*** complete and you can expect it to be **FULL** of bugs.  The 2019 versions won't be anywhere *near* useable until sometime in early January of 2020 at best. The basic issue is that there are some tax law changes that congress has still not finalized and until they do, there is no way possible to issue a "final" update to the 2019 program until they do.

I discontinued my self-employment and deleted Schedule C from H&B for 2018. Among other things, my return showed sale of business property having nothing to do with my self-employment. It's the only item showing on the Business dashboard tab.

This *could* be attributed to the fact that the 2019 program is not finalized yet. But if not (and we have absolutely no way of knowing at this point in time) if you closed your business in 2018 and did *NOT* show the correct disposition of the business, all assets, all inventory and all vehicle use (even if less than 100%) then the SCH C information will be imported.

If in the 2019 version at the start of the program, if you told the program you have business income/expenses to report *of any type* then regardless of what you did or reported on the 2018 tax return, the SCH C data will be imported. Period. End of story.

So you need to check the data that was imported for that SCH C and if it shows a 2018 disposition of "everything" then it's a program flaw and you can just delete it.  Basically, your disposition will be either sold, removed from the business for personal use, lost to theft or casualty, or given away.

The two most common mistakes I see that will cause your issue, are:

1) The business owner claimed vehicle use in the business (even if less than 100% business use) and they did not show the proper disposition of that vehicle on the SCH C. It's uncommon (but not rare) for a person who sells their business to sell their vehicle as a part of the business sale. So it would be more common for them to indicate that they "stopped using this vehicle in 2018" and indicate it was removed from business use for personal use.  Then having sold the business they failed to recapture the vehicle depreciation.

As you know, if you use a personal vehicle for less than 100% business use, you have to use the "per mile" deduction. A part of that deduction is depreciation that has to be recaptured upon disposition of the business. The problem is, since the allowed mileage deduction changes each tax year, so does the amount of depreication allowed per mile. If necessary, the charts for this are at https://www.smbiz.com/sbrl003.html#dsm

2) The business owner failed to report the disposition of any inventory still in their possession after selling the business. Generally, inventory is included in the sale of the business, but they didn't report it in the COGS section of the program.  If not included, then it's still reported in the COGS section for the other disposition of that inventory - usually "removed from the business for personal use".

 

In conclusion, if you did "in fact" correctly and completely report the disposition of the business on your 2018 return, *and* you did *NOT* tell the 2019 program that you have "any" business income/expenses to report, then the SCH C data "should not" have been imported.

Investors & landlords

It's almost inevitable that I speak with the technical specialists about one or more areas of my return each year.  Inputting the information is not the problem, but understanding some of it, or determining if there's a better way to deal with an issue often is.  

 

Will I still have access to this facility if using either Deluxe or Premier instead of H&B?

Investors & landlords


@Curious One wrote:

Will I still have access to this facility if using either Deluxe or Premier instead of H&B?


Yes, you get free technical support (link below) provided you are not using a Free version of TurboTax and you can, of course, always post any questions you have on this board.

 

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/what-is-the-turbotax-phone-number/00/25632