I think he may be asking these questions because sometimes people mistake fees for things which are not fees, and since he cannot see your return he cannot be sure if you are entering your information from a Form 1099-R or are entering information from another document source which could be the wrong thing to do. Some mistakes which could happen if you do not use a Form 1099-R that I have seen are taxpayers who work for a company and see $10,000 in their 401(k), however, only $7,500 of the account is "vested." This happens when a company makes matches to your contributions, but you are not entitled to them unless you are there for so many years. If you liquidate your 401(k) in my example, you would get $7,500 (or really 7,500 minus the 20% withholding). If you did not have your Form 1099-R, I have seen people put in $10,000 for distribution, while only getting 7,500 and assume that they must be paying fees when they are not. They were just not entitled to the other 2,500 at the time of liquidation, and if they waited the 1099-R would have listed a distribution of 7,500 instead of 10,000. You may need to answer the individuals questions if you require help, as 401(k) do not normally have fees anywhere near the magnitude of the fees listed.
Now my example may not apply to you, as it was just an example of some common mistakes people make. Also, you used the term early withdrawal penalty fees. Are you referring to the 10% fee for taking money out prior to your 59 1/2 birth year, as this is a penalty imposed by tax law and not imposed by your administrator of your 401(k)? While not divulging too much information, if you have a 1099-R, what does your box 1 amount say approximately, what is and taxes were withheld? If you truly had a 401(k) fee who imposed it and was it part of your 401K prospectus, as I said the magnitude is extremely high which makes me think there is some confusion? If you were fully vested and had 100,000 in your account, you might only get 80,000 as the other 20% would be withheld for taxes. However, the plan administrator would correctly list 100,000 as distributed to you, as you received 80,000 of it and in actuality you did received the other 20,000 however, it was sent to the IRS as an estimated payment on your behalf. So if you are taxed on the 100,000
@25% your tax would be 25K, but you would have a 20,000 withholding already paid so you would only pay an additional 5K in tax and NOT be double taxed. I left off any 10% penalty in this last example.
