Salary is by no means equivalent to Income! For tax purposes, Total Income includes everything on lines 7 through 21 on Form 1040. Total Salary is just Line 7.
Employer HSA (and Salary Reduction Agreement) contributions may indeed reduce W-2 Line 1 (and also show on W-2 Line 12 code W), but that is not the only form of HSA contribution. I do understand why you might record your pay in Quicken as a Split using the un-reduced Salary followed by a negative (Salary classification for the) HSA contribution.
I, like many others, have never received an HSA contribution from an employer! Nor has an HSA contribution ever appeared on any W-2 for me. I have always made my contributions myself, whether I was employed or not. Furthermore, one can't attribute my HSA contributions to any particular form of income, much less Salary; they just get reduce my Adjusted Gross Income (Line 37), not any particular type of income, not even Total Income (Line 33).
For anybody who is has no Salary (e.g., self-employed), classifying transfers into an HSA as Salary would produce a negative Total Salary. That would not be good.
But then I get the wrong numbers when I run TAX reports! I certainly don't want a negative Salary and a completely missing Form 8889 Line 1 and Form 1040 Line 29.
Would you also argue that the other reductions to income in Form 1040 Lines 23-35 should also be categorized as negative Salary entries?
Seems as much as a differed brokerage account is the best way to go for HSA that also provides investments options it would have been helpful to have the form 8889 for transfers into and 1099 SA as transfers out from this account for tax purposes. Was wondering how you went around the paycheck set up having the tax schedule non-existent - right now I just dump the withdrawal directly in the account?
Late to the party on this one, but HSA specifically for investment purposes would be helpful. I now have an HSA cash account which is basically a savings account, and an HSA investment account that tracks like any stock or bond investment.
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> @Snoopy FC said:
> Late to the party on this one, but HSA specifically for investment purposes would be helpful. I now have an HSA cash account which is basically a savings account, and an HSA investment account that tracks like any stock or bond investment.
Hey Snoopy. I added an investment account, set up as Type = "OTHER" in the account settings, and simply labeled it as HSA. It tracks both my investments and ready-cash value. Hope this helps.
Thanks for those thoughts. I decided from reading others in this forum to use a brokerage account for the investment portion. The savings portion accrues interest and leaving it as a savings account in Quicken allows me to reconcile it that way.
The thing I don't like about this setup is that an HSA at the level I have it in both accounts is really just a short term investment. I'd prefer if I could group them in the left menu bar so I could see how much I have combined for health savings. Anyway, I have it setup for now and will wait to see if the developers are included to do anything different.
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Comments
Employer HSA (and Salary Reduction Agreement) contributions may
indeed reduce W-2 Line 1 (and also show on W-2 Line 12 code W), but
that is not the only form of HSA contribution. I do understand why
you might record your pay in Quicken as a Split using the un-reduced
Salary followed by a negative (Salary classification for the) HSA contribution.
I, like many others, have never received an HSA contribution from an employer! Nor has an HSA contribution ever appeared on any W-2 for me. I have always made my contributions myself, whether I was employed or not. Furthermore, one can't attribute my HSA contributions to any particular form of income, much less Salary; they just get reduce my Adjusted Gross Income (Line 37), not any particular type of income, not even Total Income (Line 33).
For anybody who is has no Salary (e.g., self-employed), classifying transfers into an HSA as Salary would produce a negative Total Salary. That would not be good.
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Would you also argue that the other reductions to income in Form 1040 Lines 23-35 should also be categorized as negative Salary entries?
Please add a Health type to the list of Investment account types. These accounts are unique just like retirement and education types are. Thank you.
Was wondering how you went around the paycheck set up having the tax schedule non-existent - right now I just dump the withdrawal directly in the account?
> Late to the party on this one, but HSA specifically for investment purposes would be helpful. I now have an HSA cash account which is basically a savings account, and an HSA investment account that tracks like any stock or bond investment.
Hey Snoopy. I added an investment account, set up as Type = "OTHER" in the account settings, and simply labeled it as HSA. It tracks both my investments and ready-cash value. Hope this helps.
The thing I don't like about this setup is that an HSA at the level I have it in both accounts is really just a short term investment. I'd prefer if I could group them in the left menu bar so I could see how much I have combined for health savings. Anyway, I have it setup for now and will wait to see if the developers are included to do anything different.