Estate 1041: How to complete when there are no gains or losses?

[NameForYou]

I am the executor for my father's estate. He was not married (parents divorced over 40 years ago). It seems like form 1041 should be very easy but I find it anything but easy. I am using TT Business 2019. 

My father only had a little bit of cash in the bank, a home, and personal belongings. The bit of cash from his personal bank accounts was paid out to the Estate because he did not designate a beneficiary. The home and personal belongings were sold in 2019. 

As I understand it, since there is a step-up in basis for his real and personal property, there aren't any gains or losses, so there shouldn't be any tax liability to pay on the 1041. 

I'm stuck on the following items in trying to complete the 1041:

1. I received a 1099-S that shows the gross sales price of the home sale. The HUD-1 settlement statement shows a reduced amount due to seller because of the required payment of property taxes my father had deferred. The net proceeds were deposited in the Estate bank account. On form 1041, do I enter the gross sales price or the net amount received? 

2. Does the bit of cash from my father's personal bank accounts get reported on the 1041 since it was paid to the Estate? If so, where is it entered?

3. Do I report (and how) proceeds from the sale of personal belongings via an estate sale? If yes, where do I enter the gross amount, cost of the sale (commission of the estate sale company), the date of sale and date of purchase (date of death, perhaps?);

4. During 2019, a partial distribution was paid to beneficiaries. Do I report this on the 1041? If yes, where? Does the amount distributed have to be less than or match the gross income of the estate? In other words, is there any accounting-style balancing going on? This is a very simple estate, not a trust, and the Will does not require distributions on a schedule. The distributions were discretionary on my part as executor since the remaining expected expenses are very small and enough reserves have been kept in the estate account to cover them. I expect to close the estate is in tax year 2020. 

5. If the beneficiary distributions described above are reported on the 1041, I expect the beneficiary K-1s to have all zeros since there weren't any gains or losses. In this case, do I still generate K-1s and send them to the beneficiaries? 

I'm sorry for so many questions. I have spent hours upon hours trying to figure this all out myself. I thought it was going to be easier which is why I bought TT to handle it. Thank you in advance for any help. It is much appreciated! 

[dodgers90210]

1. Use gross proceeds as the sales price. Taxes are an expense in the year paid so deduct them.

2. Cash doesn't get reported, only interest earned on the cash.

3. Personal items are all capital assets and get reported the same as something like stocks or bonds but enter the sales proceeds less commission and enter the basis on date of death......you will have no gain because the sales price is going to be less than the basis and no loss since they're all items for personal use.....some accountants don't bother reporting that stuff at all.

4. Report discretionary distributions as tier 2....they don't have to match anything.

5. No income passed to beneficiaries means K1s aren't required.

[NameForYou]

Thank you so much @dodgers90210 . I have a couple of follow-up questions, if you don't mind. 

1. a) Where do I deduct the property tax expense on the 1041? [edited: I think I figured this out. I entered in the screen that says taxes paid for 2019 allocable to taxable income.]

1. b) I'm wondering - overall, what is the point of entering the property tax expense and all the other Estate expenses, for that matter, if there is no tax liability for the Estate? It's not like there's going to be a refund or losses to distribute to beneficiaries (I think??). I'm just puzzled over this. 

3. Sale of personal items - I can see the logic and efficiency in not reporting this at all since there is no gain and no loss. Is there any risk if I go this route? In other words, with such a simple estate, the 1041 would end up only showing the sale of the home. This is acceptable? Common logic tells me it should be fine since there's no gain or loss to report, which is the point of the 1041. But common logic doesn't always equate with how taxes work. 

Edited to add: for the sale of personal items, I decided to try and enter them. I entered the net of the gross sales proceeds less estate sale company commission in column (d); I entered the basis on date of death in column (e), which equals the gross sales proceeds. As you said, the sales proceeds (d) are less than the basis (e). However, TT is now showing a long-term loss. It added a loss to the 1041 and now there is a loss carryover worksheet. Is this correct? Based on what you said above, personal items cannot result in a loss but TT doesn't seem to make this distinction. I understand TT calculated a loss because of column (d) being less than (e). What should I do about this? 

Thank you again for your wonderful help! 

[NameForYou]

@dodgers90210  Thank you again for your time and help on this. Is there any way you can answer my follow-up questions above? I would greatly appreciate it. 🙂