AH, soooooo!! I'm starting to see the light.
The problem I was having was on the page where it asks you to enter the Annuity Information. There are four boxes:
Annuity Start Date
Plan Cost
Number of Months Payments were received in 2019
Tax-Free Amount Previously Recovered - This is the box I was struggling with
The above-referenced page with the 4 boxes does/doesn't come up, depending upon the answer to the question provided on the page before, which is: "Was the amount shown in the taxable annuity box the taxable amount?" There are two possible answers:
1. Yes, the taxable annuity amount was used as the taxable amount,
2. No, a different amount was taxable
Both the question and the first answer are confusing to me. There is a Taxable Amount box (2a) on the 1099, but not a taxable annuity box. What did make sense to me was that the taxable amount (2a) is different from the Gross distribution amount (Box 1), so I chose the second option. But that's the option that caused the four questions to appear (and my headache). So, in plain English 🙂 LOL, what are they really saying when they ask, "Was the amount shown in the taxable annuity box the taxable amount?" What is the taxable annuity box?
