Where do I enter Colorado 529 contributions?

[SamiaI · Accepted solution]

You will see it on the page, Tuition Program Contribution under your Colorado State tab (Please see screenshot below).

To qualify for this Colorado subtraction, the plan must be administered by CollegeInvest. Your contribution must be included in your federal taxable income.

Here are some plans that qualify:

• Direct Portfolio College Savings Plan
• Scholars Choice College Savings Program
• Stable Value Plus College Savings Plan
• Smart Choice College Savings Plan

[christenmc12]

But why would me paying out into a 529 count as income on my Federal return?

[remmer46]

Indeed, I also contribute to College Invest in Colorado and it makes no sense to claim it as income on Federal forms and a deduction on the Colorado form.  Does someone know the answer?

[motorthings]

Did anyone find a solution to this?

I'm in the same boat of not seeing a place to enter 529 contributions for CO

[MaryK4]

It is a Colorado subtraction which means you are getting a tax break for it on the Colorado return only. "Paying in" does not mean you pay on the contribution on the federal return, it just means you cannot use tax-free money for the subtraction.  For example, if you did a rollover to a Colorado 529, it would not be taxed on the federal return so you could not subtract it from Colorado income.

@motorthings

[Colorado_Sean]

In the TurboTax application, go to the top menu and select:

View\Forms

Then scroll down on the left side under the column "Forms in My Return" past Form 1040 until you see in the Colorado Individual section, expand it, and select:

Form 104AD

Within this form, section 8 addresses CollegeInvest contributions.  The table to the left allows entry of multiple contribution rows, and as you fill each of these in, the amount of money in them totals in the right column for row 8.

Once you've entered these values in manually, go back to the top menu and select:

View\Step-by-Step

I also didn't see how TurboTax queried the user for the 2020 taxes about 529 CollegeInvest contributions.  I'm sure it asked about this in the 2019 taxes.  Come on Intuit - make this easier for us!

[evelyn-m-shih]

Related question: Turbotax sent me an email to say my Colorado State Tax is filed, but I need to mail in an extra form. It doesn't say which form. I'm suspecting this has to do with the 529 entry, since nowhere did the software ask me to prove my contribution with a receipt or a CollegeInvest account number. Does anyone know what this is about, and what to do about it?

[DaveF1006]

According to this Colorado website, "Supporting documentation must be submitted to the Department in order to prove eligibility for credits and/or subtractions claimed on the Colorado Income Tax Return. For information about specific documentation requirements, refer to the Credits and/or Subtractions web page(s)."  In this link is Revenue Online which allows you to submit this information online even after  your return is electronically filed.

[bugsman42]

Double-check what CDOR thinks you submitted.

TT has a bug with the Easy-forms for 529.

It never queried me for the 529 account owner in the Easy forms section. Going down into the actual raw 104 forms, that info was missing. I logged onto CDOR and noticed my refund was off by a lot, and the 529 Contribution form (104AD) was NOT submitted. I had to amend the return through CDOR. CDOR must have rejected the 104AD form when TT submitted all my data.

[jlfagan69]

This happened to me for 2023 Turbotax.  My CO tax return e-file was rejected because it said the name & SSN for the College 529 contributions was not entered on 0104AD form, yet I went back into Turbotax & my name & SSN were on the 0104AD form when I went back in.  I could see that my name & SSN were NOT on the initial printout though when I first e-filed.  So weird.