Is it OK to enter an excess QCD amount in the 2024 Turbotax Deluxe (desktop) Forms Mode when QCDs from a conventional IRA exceed the RMD?

[DFH]

There appears to be an appropriate place to do so, namely line B of the “RMD Excess Accumulation Worksheet” past the middle of Form 1099-R. However, values entered there manually are display in bright red characters.

[DanaB27 · Accepted solution]

You shouldn't override anything in Forms mode.

1. Click on "Search" on the top right and type “1099-R”
2. Click on “Jump to 1099-R” and enter your 1099-R
3. On the "Required Minimum Distribution" screen enter RMD for this account
4. On the "How much of This Distribution Applied to your December 31, 2024 RMD" select "Some of this distribution…" and enter the RMD amount (if this distribution includes RMD for other IRA accounts then you included the amount here)
5. Answer the "Transfer to Charity Screen"

[VolvoGirl]

What is an excess QCD?   A QCD has nothing to do with excess accumulation.   You can take a QCD for more than the RMD.   

[dmertz]

As VolvoGirl said, QCDs are not limited to the amount of your RMD.  The 2024 annual limit on QCDs is $105,000.  To report the QCD, simply enter the Form 1099-R that reports the distribution from the traditional IRA, mark the checkbox (online version of TurboTax) or answer Yes (desktop version of TurboTax) to indicate that some or all of the distribution was a QCD, then enter the amount.  TurboTax will include the gross distribution amount on Form 1040 line 4a but will exclude the QCD amount from the amount on line 4b and will show the QCD notation next to the line.

[DFH]

I meant to write excess RMD, not QCD.  I likely made that error because all my RMD, including the excess, went to QCDs.

[DFH]

@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.