dmertz referred to the Simplified method, because you mentioned the "first year you began getting payments" question, which appears if you are going through the Simplified interview in the 1099-R interview.
dmertz was trying to "head you off at the pass" by asking if there is an entry in box 2a, and if so, is it the correct taxable amount. If, so, in the 1099-R interview, when asked, just say that the box 2a entry was used as the taxable value last year (if it truly was). Then you won't be asked about the Simplified or any other method.
The question I have is, was your pension really converted to an annuity? I ask because for purposes of data entry in TurboTax, pensions and annuities are treated the same, so I want to make sure that there was an actual conversion, or just confusion on the wording in the data entry process (pensions and annuities are referred to somewhat interchangeably).
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