1040 - SR and Distributions from a Non-Qualified Pension

[dgweller]

I got blindsided when I went to save my return to .pdf, and then looked at it, and it showed me 1040-SR instead of 1040. I was not familiar with 1040-SR. Eventually after wasting time searching I discovered that Turbo Tax prints on a different form than what appears in Forms view. This needs to be clarified. Can this be improved? I finally figured this out, and next I reviewed my 1040, and my W-2 income did not appear on line 1a. Again I wasted time Googling and finally found out that Turbo Tax transfers W-2 income shown on box 11 to line 8 on the 1040. This also needs to be clarified. Can Turbo Tax improve these items in future Turbo Tax Desktop releases so I save time, avoid stress and gain confidence in the results?

[xmasbaby0]

Form 1040 and 1040SR are identical.   If you or your spouse are 65 or older, the return prints out on 1040SR.  All of the lines are identical and all of the calculations are identical.   The difference is that 1040SR has bigger print and uses three pieces of paper instead of two.   Your refund or tax due were not affected at all.

[xmasbaby0]

And....if your income was shown on line 8  of the 1040SR it is because it came from Schedule 1.  Here is what Schedule 1 looks like.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040s1.pdf

[dgweller]

You are not answering my question. Why can’t Turbo Tax step by step inform the user that it automatically prints 1040 as 1040-SR and inform the user how to change this? I spent an hour freaking out trying to figure out what was going on. 

[dgweller]

Once again you are providing the answer to something I spent an hour trying to figure out, and ultimately figured out without your help. My question is, why can’t Turbo Tax make it clearer to the user that income received on a W-2 from a nonqualified pension gets transferred to Schedule 1 and ultimately line 8 on 1040. I freaked out when I didn’t see the amount I entered on my W-2 on line 1a and spent an hour of my valuable time researching  this when I wanted to be doing something else. In fact I was concerned about the credibility of the Turbo Tax program. 

[VolvoGirl]

The 1040SR is EXACTLY the same as the regular 1040 just bigger type so it prints on 3 pages instead of 2.  And the Standard Deduction is on page 4.  They both use the same instructions and tax calculations.

When you print it will print on the 1040SR even if you see only the 1040 on the screen.  You automatically get the 1040SR if you or your spouse is 65 or older.  In the Desktop program you can tell it which one to print.  

If you use the Desktop program you can switch to forms and the Info Wks part II has a selection to select 1040SR or not.  You can not change it in the Online versions.   In the Online version if you want to use the regular 1040 form, you can print out the 1040SR and copy the amounts onto a blank 1040 and then mail your return.

[Mike9241]

each line on a Turbotax form or schedule could have instructions that are pages long. this would require its programmers to write additional code for 100s of thousand, if not more, of line in all the tax forms Turbotax does.  this could raise the cost to more than what a pro would charge. It's a matter of practicality since there is this forum and, i believe, free live support for all but online basic