Well, you have good points, I was just finding that by the "book" TT seems to be doing it right. Ie, if I were filling out the form by hand, I think I would do it the same way based on the 1040 instructions. But let's think about what the intention was this year for the 1040. They wanted it to fit on a "post card", so I think they have condensed a lot of things that make it seem a little illogical. Theoretically 1099's are sent to IRS so they have all the details anyway. What they really care about is the taxable portion of any income and that is included in 4b. I think I will file as TT has it working, and we'll see how things go. I suspect that unless you really have some amount for income, deductions, etc that is really way out of line with averages, they won't come anywhere close to an audit of anyone for line 4a alone.
