Thanks, tagteam, for your rapid response. Your answer seems reasoned but it doesn't actually solve my problem because I don't know how to input the info into the appropriate box. Moreover, I am a small business taxpayer and my inventory simply represents the purchase price of the existing books--which I am regarding as materials and supplies. So perhaps this is where my confusion is. After inputting $87 as Cost of Purchases (29 books x $3), if in the Materials and Supplies input box I enter only $87, my taxes due jumps up nearly $600! (My book "sales" for the year were less than $400.) If I enter $0 into the Materials and Supplies box, they jump up an additional $20. On the other hand, the higher the number I plug into the Materials and Supplies box (say, 5000) the less my due taxes are. Even though I am working with less than five inputs, I'm doing something fundamentally incorrect. And if I declare No Inventory, turbotax skips further inputs and reflects the last entry made into Materials and Supplies before the No Inventory declaration. I'm flummoxed.
