1099-B Input Process for Employee Stock Fixed?

[mako425]

So I have in my notes from last year that, for the 1099-B input process, I should select the factually incorrect answer of "No, this is not employee stock".  I remember last year, if you selected "Yes" it would cause all sorts of problems in your forms and even prevent you from filing.

Is this still true?  Or has TurboTax finally fixed it?

[DavidD66]

Whether or not you should indicate that you are reporting the sale of investment stock depends.  Instead of thinking of it as factual misstatement, think of it as indicating whether or not you want the additional interview questions and calculations related to the sale of company stock.  Some situations involving company stock are relatively simple and the amounts to enter are easy to determine on one's own, especially if you have previous experience entering those tpe of transactions  (RSUs would be a good example of this).  Other situations can greatly benefit from the additional help you get from indicating you sales involve company stock.  Incentive Stock Options that were exercised and held, and ESPP stock after leaving a company are examples where the additional guidance and calculations can be very beneficial.  If you would like to reply back with type of company stock your sale involves I can provide some additional guidance and help with your particular situation.   

[mako425]

Appreciate the response and your assumption is correct.  It is just a divider between two paths for the software to take - backend auto calcs or a more detailed questionnaire with user driven inputs.  However, I hope you can understand that, for someone who's not a tax expert, the majority of the entire process of filing your taxes is about trying not to make a mistake.  And for a factual error to be built into the interface is a little jarring.  (ie for this step, select what you know NOT to be true)  The other problem is that the backend auto calcs are not transparent at all.  I only discovered them after the fact when I was checking the forms at the end and noticed the 8949 gains and losses were different than the 1099-B values.

Anyway, for this year I just selected "No" again and didn't bother with indicating that it was employee stock.  I guess all I can do is hope that H&R Block comes out with a better competing product sometime soon.