Foreign Taxs from investment accounts

[LeeL1]

I have Foreign Taxes paid on my 1099-DIV from a brokerage account.  Turbo Tax is asking "You entered $xxx.xx of foreign taxes paid.  Now enter the portion of the Now enter the portion of the $xxxx.xx dividends and distributions that was from a foreign country or U.S. possession"? 

The "$xxxx.xx dividends" does not match any numbers i can find on my 1099-DIV .... what does that number come from?

[KrisD15]

It should be the total of all the Dividends you entered. Did you look at the total or are you only looking at each one? 

[LeeL1]

TY for the reply ... it does not equal any of the box of the 1099-DIV for (1a, 1b, etc) or any combination i can figure out.  The foreign tax amount (from box 7) is the correct value however.

[AmyC]

If your foreign tax -box 7- is over $300 or $600 MFJ, then you need to go through the Form 1116 and enter the amount of foreign income that produced the foreign dividends. You will enter RIC (regulated investment company) for the foreign country since you are going through a brokerage account.

For example: you got $2,500 in dividends, how much is from a foreign country - look at the details of your 1099-B and find say 20% foreign dividends. Then 20% of $2500 is $500 of the total dividends are from foreign countries. The foreign tax in $75  

In this example, you paid $75 in foreign tax on $500 of foreign income that were included in your total income of $2,500.

If your box 7 requires you to file Form 11116, see Claiming the Foreign Tax Credit with Form 1116 - TurboTax. Most people claim the credit. You can check the deduction to see if it is better for you.

[eacr · Accepted solution]

I had the same concern but figured out where the number came from (for me at least). Clue is "dividends AND distributions" - for one of my accounts it was the sum of the total ordinary dividends + capital gains distribution (1a + 2a); for another of my accounts it was sum of total ordinary dividends + nondividend distributions (1a + 3)

[LeeL1]

Thank you for this response (the other replies didn't really answer the question).  Unfortunately, i can't really verify the reply since i've already updated the foreign tax info.  I tried to go back but can't see a way to do the match and check.  Appreciate it!