Form 8615 and the associated Schedule D Tax worksheet

[cmgmrt]

I have the Deluxe version of TurboTax for Windows - and will check the Mac version later tonight.

I'm working with my college age student on their taxes. Due to unemployment income, a form 8615 is required.  And we as parents have a small amount of qualified dividends to declare on 8615.  This appears to cause the Schedule D Tax worksheet to be required.

When the Schedule D tax worksheet is added, there appears to be an error transferring the child's income from Form 1040, line 15 to line 1 of the worksheet.  Instead, it appears to take the value from Form 8615, line 14.  By doing a trial tax return, and adjusting income values, I observed this anomaly.   The value used in the trial tax return, and the initial tax return both were from that line, and appear nowhere else in the return.

I spent 45+ minutes on the phone with support this afternoon, before the call was dropped and am awaiting another return call.  Has anyone else experienced this issue?  Any suggestions beyond over-riding the amount on line 1 of the Schedule D tax worksheet?

[cmgmrt]

Just tried it with TurboTax 2020 Mac with the same result as on Windows.

[tberbari]

I am having the same issue. Was it ever resolved?

[cmgmrt]

@tberbari 

I do not have any official update.  However, I did some research and here's what I found out:

1) The calculations on the form are correct, the words are not.  I found the form and associated instructions on the IRS website, and the amount to be transferred to the worksheet is supposed to be from Form 8615, line 14. Bottom line:  The words on the form, and the help link, are incorrect.

2) After I figured this out, things still seemed off a bit, so I started my child's tax return anew.  Between restarting and perhaps an update or so, I now get a consistent tax amount.  I suspect that there might have been a bug in the program regarding when the worksheet was required - I think this has been addressed as it does not currently reoccur in my environment.

Whenever I don't understand something that TurboTax computes, I start by going to forms view, and then further to the IRS (or state tax) website for information about that form.  I've found this to be a very helpful path to understanding (not that taxes are understandable!).

I hope this is helpful to you.

[tberbari]

Thank you. That is very helpful

[slattek]

Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.

[KM39]

Schedule D Tax Worksheet is being reused by Form 8615, but the instructions do not reflect this.  See Pub. 929, page 21,  "Using the Schedule D Tax Worksheet for line 15 tax" for additional instructions.

In short, Line 14 on Form 8615 is the remaining income (after remaining deductions are applied) that was not used in Part 1 of F8615.