Should I have to pay income tax on K-1 income I received from the Trust I administer, when I am the sole beneficiary and the Trust has already paid tax on the 1041 ?

[dwilliams]

I administer my Mother's (deceased) trust as trustee and I'm also the sole beneficiary.  I have purchased both Turbo Tax Premier to do my own taxes and then realized I needed to purchase Turbo Tax Business to do the 1041 form for the trust.  There is only one 1099 DIV and one 1099 INT for the trust, so it's pretty simple.  I control the trust from my Wells Fargo Brokerage account, so I have complete access to the funds.  The trust owes $ 18.00 Federal taxes, based on the information I entered from the 1099's.  However, when I did my personal taxes in Premier and entered the K-1 that was created from the trust taxes, I got hit with more income taxes on my personal return.  Being the beneficiary, I thought that I would not be charged income taxes on proceeds from the trust, as long as the Trust is paying taxes on the earnings from Wells Fargo ?  What am I doing wrong ?  It seems as though I'm paying double taxes on the same money, once from the trust and then again on a personal basis, help ?

[tagteam · Accepted solution]

"What am I doing wrong ? "

Unless there are other, as of yet unstated, facts, it is almost a certainty that you are not distributing all of the income to yourself, as sole beneficiary. 

The only way the trust would owe federal tax would be if some, or all, of the income was being retained at the trust level.