@DanaB27, Thanks for the explanation of how to answer the step-by-step questions appropriately for my situation.
Since you are an Intuit employee, I ask that you propose to your management that the 1099-R related step-by-step questions in the desktop edition be revised in future year editions, if not in an update for 2024, to include more instruction on how to answer them in the case of a taxpayer with multiple traditional IRAs with RMDs, the total of which has been more than satisfied (rather than satisfying each IRA’s RMD individually), and when some of those withdrawals were QCDs.
I have more experience than the average taxpayer in reading questions and instructions closely. I started using Turbotax when it was distributed on 5⅟4-inch floppy disks, before it was purchased by Intuit. Yet every year I struggled in deciding how to answer the current question set for each IRA such that the correct amounts are calculated for the lines 4a and 4b of Form 1040, as well as for whichever IRS Form is used to document whether the total of the IRA RMDs was satisfied.
In current and recent desktop editions of Turbotax’s Forms mode, for many amounts neither the QuickZoom nor Data Source functions are available. It would be helpful to users such as myself if in the Turbotax Forms mode all, or at least more of, the antecedents of amounts on forms and worksheets were traceable to the entries on those other forms or worksheets, thereby making it much more difficult to verify the computed amounts are based on correct inputs (generated from the user’s answers to the step-by-step questions), and to troubleshoot form entries that are clearly erroneous.
