Complete Check stops me at: Form 1116: foreign tax credit comp wks: adj basis of tot inv ast must be entered. This is to create the ratio to allocate $70 of investment interest expense to foreign income. How do I determine adjusted basis of total investment assets?
Assuming that what you are talking about is soemthing like a mutual fund which has invested in foreign funds and therefore has foreign income on which foreign taxes were paid on your behalf. You are trying to get credit for that foreign taxes paid. Right ?
In such a case , your broker and /or the back-up sheet to your Broker's Consolidated Report will detail the foreign % of holding for the specific fund. ---- thus it will say Fund XYZ --- various countries 13%. You then multiply this percentage by your total honding in that fund to come up with the value of your foreign holdings -- which generated the foreign income.
Assuming that what you are talking about is soemthing like a mutual fund which has invested in foreign funds and therefore has foreign income on which foreign taxes were paid on your behalf. You are trying to get credit for that foreign taxes paid. Right ?
In such a case , your broker and /or the back-up sheet to your Broker's Consolidated Report will detail the foreign % of holding for the specific fund. ---- thus it will say Fund XYZ --- various countries 13%. You then multiply this percentage by your total honding in that fund to come up with the value of your foreign holdings -- which generated the foreign income.
But the question is.... "Adjusted Basis of investment assets generating foreign income" Its not asking for a country or what % of the country it is. It's asking for Adjusted basis - whatever that really means. No info on TT.
same question. form 1116 "error" is preventing me from filing
same issue here. No clarity from TT about which assets/investments this relates to.
Same issue. I have no context for what is being asked and since it is a TT calculation form, I don't know what i need to enter here. TurboTax does a horrible job on clarifying their calculation worksheets
has anyone figured out how to get past this error in TT?
@tuxedorose , sorry for the delay in my answer --- generally these adjustments are required for things like foreign capital gains/losses ; for foreign qualified dividends etc. where US has a preferential tax treatment i.e. not taxed at ordinary income tax rate. For most people whom pay foreign taxes at source on income from Mutual funds or similar investments , this adjustment to the foreign gross income is NOT applicable -- so just enter ZERO for adjustment ( TurboTax should require an entry rather than leaving it blank ).
For more details on how to adjust etc. see page 7 of instruction for form 1116. Note that this same form is used for a wide area of foreign tax -- from very simple case like foreign dividend income ( through Mutual Funds or direct ownership of foreign stocks etc.) to very complex foreign investments and incomes, thus making it overly complex for many taxpayers.
pk
That would have been super helpful during tax season last year. Now not so much. I'm assuming I just put in a random number because Turbo tax had no help figuring out the right number and kept flagging it as an error if I didn't enter anything.
It's becoming less obvious to me what exactly I'm paying to use the software for. This doesn't seem like a question that is so esoteric that there isn't any turbo tax help.
@eschuldt , I do not know whether I should apologize or not -- understand your frustration. Al I can suggest is that if you raise a question on the community board and do not get an answer in a reasonable time, you can always take the liberty of sending Private Mail ( PM ) to one of us volunteers -- if we don't know the answer, we will bring it to the attention of another whom we think deals with that area. I deal mostly with foreign and international taxation issues such as form 1116. so have no excuse how I missed this. Often starting a new thread may help rather than tacking onto another thread. That is all I can say-- I empathize with your predicament but really don't know how to help at this stage
@pk thanks for your detailed response. yes, this form 1116 and its worksheet are used for a many kinds of foreign income but the vast majority of us mere mortals 🙂 just have a bit of a bit of foreign taxes paid because of some of our mutual funds.
for that reason, TT should recognize that fact and ask if this is the case rather than ask us to enter line items on the worksheet that are hard to understand.
that being said... when you suggest to just "enter 0 for adjustment", im not sure I understand? was that an option when it showed me the error message?.... I think the error message I got told me I had to enter amt for 1116 worksheet PART I, 4b ->1b "adjusted basis of investment assest generating foreign income
and 1c "adjusted basis of total investment assets
both of these are "User Entered" and I dont think you can enter 0 without an error message
can you please take a look ? Thanks!
i do not know if this is your situation, but if the FTC amount for what is termed passive income (really portfolio) is $300 or less ($600 or less if married filing joint) the form can be omitted under the Simplified Method. what you lose by using the SM is that ability to use any FTC carryforward from 2018 is lost and you get no carryover of unused FTC to 2020. the 1116 is required for passive/portfolio income if you are taking the FTC for any other category of FTC such as general, 901(l), 951A, etc.
Agreeing with @Anonymous , you should note that while your foreign taxes paid is recognized $ for $, the allowable amount for the year is based on the ratio of your foreign income to world income, the rest of the amount of foreign tax is eligible for carry back and carry forward. So sometimes , even if the foreign taxes paid is above the safe harbor amount ( $300 for single and $600 for married filing joint ), you may be better served by claiming ONLY the safe harbor amount. This of course is dependent on your specific circumstances and facts, including your longer term plans of foreign income and foreign taxes.
@tuxedorose , I tried duplicating your situation i.e. using an adjustment of zero for gross foreign income/asset ( on which foreign taxes were levied) as also just leaving it blank -- I could not get an error. However I am using desktop version of Home & Business with the latest updates. I did indeed find the questions etc. quite opaque and possibly troublesome for the uninitiated. Normally I operate mostly in forms mode and often shuttling between the step-by-step and forms mode. Do not have access and not familiar with the on-line version ( it is supposed to be same or very similar from user perspective , in step-by-step mode). If zero has not worked , I would suggest clearing the entries ( gross foreign income/ asset ) and adjustment and re-enter both -- perhaps this will reset the entry worksheet. Another thing I noticed is that to get to the form 1116, other than jump to from search, one has to select "update" foreign taxes paid under "deductions and credits " tab -- a bit contorted way of getting there.
thanks @pk . Im glad you explained what the purpose of the calculations on form 1116 but its still not clear.
i see them taking the ratio of foreign income to total income but then they do a convoluted calculatino based on a % of your ITEMIZED DEDUCTIONS and then subtract that from your foreign income .
then they finally do a ratio of this number to your taxable income
then multiply this by your tax owed to get the amount of foreign tax credit for this year.
Im trying to understand the logic and intent of all this?!?
is it safe to say
1. the larger the % of your foreign income to your total income allows for a bigger foreign tax credit this year
2. the larger the % itemized deductions compared to total income, will reduce the foreign tax credit this year
am I missing anything?
thanks. I guess it pays to look at it 2 ways ...
1. taking the $300 with simplified method(for single taxpayer) vs doing all those crazy calculations which might result in less than $300 of tax credit this year
2. doing the standard method (crazy calculations) and possibly taking a lower tax credit this year but getting the benefit of carry fwd on the unused foreign taxes
is that right?
@pk thanks for trying to reproduce the problem. i dont think im going to try to help INTUIT debug their s/w 🙂 but I am getting the hang of switching between the easy answer vs doing open heart surgery on the forms themselves. its great that they let you enter data directly into forms and let you hyperlink to where the calculations come from
Does TOTAL assets include my rental real estate assets? Other brokerage accounts?
WillEllen
No, rental real estate income is business income, but your brokerage account is considered investment income. Generally, investment income includes capital gains, interest income, dividends, and all other financial investment income. You may only claim foreign tax credit up to the amount of US taxes.
But I am not in the real estate business. Just a single house that I rent out. TurboTax worksheet for form 1116 Foreign Tax Credit, line 4.B.1.C Adjusted Basis of TOTAL Investment Assets seems to include everything like a real estate investment. Please Clarify
@will1ellen agreeing with @JoannaB2 about the treatment of assets, just wanted to point out that as far as foreign tax credit goes --- 1. the total foreign taxes paid on income is recognized dollar for dollar; 2. the allowable foreign tax credit for the tax year under question is based on a ratio of US tax on foreign income to that on world income ; 3. unallowed foreign tax credit is eligible for carry back one year and carry forward for 10 years ( as long as there is foreign source taxable income in that year ). TurboTax and form 1116 does this work for you.
@will1ellen , can you tell me a little bit more of your situation --- (a) are US citizen/Resident/Resident for tax purposes; (b) is your tax home in the USA or are you abroad; (c) which country is the rental property in; (d) the taxes you paid to the foreign taxing authority is a flat fee ( based on size or location or ?? ) or based on actual gross/net rent; (e) did you file a schedule-E for the rental property; (f) is this your first year of rent; (g) did you recognize depreciation on the property ? I ask these because I am not sure I understand why you are trying to allocate interest expenses across diferent investment ( work sheet referenced area is for that purpose only ).
Await your answers
I have an income from a foreign country in the form of 1099-DIV and interest income from saving bank accounts. How can I calculate the "Adjusted basis of investment assets generating foreign income" and also "
@sweerkaul , assuming that your 1099-div is from a US financial/brokerage there usually will be no adjustments to basis. Adjustment to basis is mostly used for cases where Tax Treaty dictates taxation rate of the income.
If your investment ( producing dividend and interest incomes) are being controlled by you and not through a US brokerage, then I need to know the country where your investment is to be able to investigate this further. Also I am assuming that you are a US person in 2020 ( i.e. US citizen/ Green Card / Resident for Tax Purposes).
@pk Yes I am a US person for year 2020 and my 1099-DIV is from a US financial/brokerage . On my 1099-DIV it shows the Foreign Tax Paid and the Foreign Country to which the Tax is paid is ISRAEL.
Apart from this 1099-DIV , I have also received the interest income from Saving Bank accounts in INDIA.
So knowing all this , can you please suggest how should I answer ( calculate) these below questions from TT :
Yes. I can give you some basics on what the question is asking.