Please help. Solo 401k TurboTax question.

[Anonymous]

Hi.  I submitted this question earlier today and it was deleted with no warning/explanation.  I still need help with this.

I made contributions to an individual/solo 401k in 2017.  I entered these contributions in TurboTax under Business -> Business Income and Expenses -> Less Common Business Expenses -> Self-employed Retirement, and I did separately enter the amount of regular elective deferrals and Employer (Profit Sharing) contributions.  No issues there.

I finished entering everything for my tax return, and now I'm in the "Federal Review" section.  It's telling me "Schedule C -- SE Health and LTC Insurance Dedn Wks: Keogh SEP contribution must be entered."

Since I don't have a Keogh SEP, should I just put zero?  

Or should I put my solo 401k employee contribution there too?  (Or my profit sharing contribution)?  I'm not clear what it's looking for.

My total from both employee and employer contributions is already listed under line B on the Self-Employed Health and Long-Term Care Insurance Deduction Worksheet, but it doesn't specify a difference between the employee vs the employer contribution.

I'm just not clear what I need to enter for the Keogh contribution.  Any insight would be much appreciated.

[dmertz]

TurboTax is not asking about a "Keogh SEP."  It is indicating that you made a self-employed retirement contribution and TurboTax simply needs to know the amount of that self-employed retirement contribution is attributable to the business under which you are claiming the self-employed health insurance deduction.  If you have only one business, enter the entire amount (the total of employer and employee contributions) that you contributed to the solo 401(k).

TurboTax needs to ask this because the amount of your self-employed health insurance deduction, the self-employed retirement deduction and the deductible portion of self-employment taxes attributable to this business is not permitted to exceed the net profit from this business.

[veylupek]

Thank you, dmertz!  I was bumping up against this, and TurboTax was just bumping my self-employed health insurance deduction down without explaining why.  Now I get it 🙂

[pixmation]

I have the same smart check error. It's confusing since I have solo 401k, not Keogh, SEP or SIMPLE.

[dmertz]

All self-employed retirement contributions go on TurboTax's Keogh, SEP and SIMPLE Contribution Worksheet, including contributions to a solo 401(k).  If you have only a single business, all of the deductible employee and employer contributions made by you to the business's retirement plan must be shown on line B of the Self-Employed Health and Long-Term Care Insurance Deduction Worksheet.  TurboTax shows this total next to the line-B entry of the worksheet.

This calculation is done to make sure that the total of your deduction for this health insurance plus your deductible self-employed retirement contributions plus the deductible portion of self-employment taxes does not exceed net profit from this business.