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Thank you for reaching out to the Community with your request.
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If it was appropriate to allow catigorizing Inc - Income(Div, Int, etc), that it should be equalaby appropriate for Reinvest - Income Reinvested
To account for qualified dividends at tax time, I am using the Misc. option of the Div Income dialog, and then use _QualDivInc as the category. My use of this work-around is to give me more accurate tax-reporting and tax-planning.
Any advice?
Or, to be clearer in the Transaction List, you could record it as two separate transactions, a MiscInc with the _QualDivInc Category for the Qualified dividends and a Balance adjustment from the account's gear menu to restore the correct cash balance.
Thinking further about this Idea, I think the best implementation would be for Quicken to add a setting for each security where the user can specify the percentage of the security's dividends that are Qualified. The default should be 0%, as it is today. This percentage does not generally change much over time.
For a US stock, stock mutual fund, or ETF, the Qualified percentage would generally be 100%. For a taxable bond, bond fund, or bond ETF, this would be 0%. For a balanced fund that holds a combination of stocks and taxable bonds, it might be 40%.
The user would continue to record the total dividend payments using the existing dialogs and Quicken would record the full amount as _DivInc and the Qualified portion as _QualDivInc. Only the _DivInc should add to the cash balance or to the cost of reinvestments. The _DivInc and _QualDivInc amounts would flow to the Tax Planner and Tax reports. Dividends in Reminders would also get an allocation to _QualDivInc in the Tax Planner.
Because _DivInc includes the _QualDivInc amount (as it does today), _QualDivInc should not be included by default in the Investing or Spending reports, to avoid double counting. Note that this would be a change to the Investing Income report
@Jim_Harman Thanks for those clarifications. I had not realized that was the way the _QualDivInc category was being applied. I had expected total Dividend Income to be _DivInc + _QualDivInc. That is NOT the case.
And while _QualDivInc as a category is associated to Tax Line Schedule B:Qualified Dividend, the only place that appears to follow is for the Tax Planning tool. The category does not show up on the Schedule B tax report. It will show up separately on various reports grouped or subtotaled by Category.
Back to the original idea, the OP wrote:
Currently to enter a dividend as qualified, I have to change the download from my broker from Dividend to Miscellaneous …
That would (currently) appear to be inaccurate as I understand it. Changing the transaction to MiscInc with category = _QualDivInc is going to lose that transaction as a Dividend Income component. The amount would not show on a Schedule B report (though it does appear in a Tax Schedule Report) or as dividend income for the tax planner. Am I missing something or did something change along the way?
@q_lurker
You are correct.
It is somewhat confusing, but as currently (and I think correctly) implemented, _DivInc should include Qualified dividends. Amounts assigned to _QualDivInc correctly flow to the Qualified Dividends lines in the Tax Planner and the Tax Schedule report. Amounts entered on the Qualified Dividends line correctly reduce the total tax due computed by the Tax Planner because that portion of the total dividends is taxed at a lower rate.
What I am seeing in the Schedule B report is that the amount I record as _QualDivInc is incorrectly shown as Taxable Interest.
Also the Tax Summary report incorrectly adds the _DivInc and _QualDivInc amounts.
… as currently (and I think correctly) implemented, _DivInc should include Qualified dividends.
I don’t see that as the current implementation. What I find incorrect about the current implementation is that you have to enter the qualified dividend twice - once as _DivInc and a second as _QualDivInc with then the cash correction you cited. IMO, the qualified component would have been better as a subcategory - _DivInc:Qual.
I suppose the "correct" implementation depends on what real life data you are trying to match. The Tax Planner is apparently mapping to the way dividends are reported on the 1099 forms - Total dividends in box 1a and Qualified (a portion of the total) in 1b. Also all the brokerages I have dealt with download Total dividends throughout the year and only provide the breakdown that shows the Qualified portion in the 1099's at the end of the year. That would also be consistent with the security level "% Qualified" setting I proposed above.
On the other hand, I can't think of any other situations where a downloaded or entered amount is supposed to be recorded twice. The closest is Tax free income, where the dividends are entered using the Dividend entry but converted behind the scenes to _DivIncTaxFree, based on the security level Tax Exempt setting, and that Category is not included on the Tax reports.
What I am proposing is that you enter dividends from securities that produce Qualified dividends using the Dividend entry and they flow directly to _DivInc. Behind the scenes Quicken would compute the amount to add to _QualDivInc and use that in the Tax Planner. _QualDivInc would be reported in the Tax reports but not added to _DivInc.
https://community.quicken.com/profile/Jim_Harman I like your idea regarding the ability to specify the percentage of the Ordinary Dividend to allocate as being a Qualified Dividend, and to have the proper amounts roll to the Tax Planner as well as the appropriate reports. This sounds like an easy fix.
Is this a recommendation that has been made, and if not, can we do so?
Additionally, I spoke with the tech people at Morgan Stanley this morning and inquired of them as to whether the category for Qualified Dividends are appropriately listed when the dividends are actually paid, and then downloaded through Quicken throughout the year. I was informed that is the case. When the dividends are paid, they are appropriately allocated in the Morgan Stanley system. It sounds to me like Quicken is not recognizing the Qualified Dividend categorization as it's being sent from Morgan Stanley. If this is indeed the case, Quicken should recognize the brokerage house categorization at download, and appropriately use it on the back end … problem solved.
Rick
@ricke Ideas like this are the only mechanism we have to propose improvements to Quicken.
If you like an Idea, go to the first post in the thread and cast your vote for it by clicking on the little up arrow below the vote count. Generally Ideas must receive around 50 votes in order to be proposed to Development for implementation.
Done! Thank you Jim_Harman
As a side note, this would only be helpful for anyone who has a brokerage account and also pays federal taxes. If you feel like that may apply to you, please click the up-vote arrow at the top of this thread.
One further thought on a workaround - not a desirable or permanent fix - to capture Qualified dividends in the Tax Planner using the current Quicken:
I mentioned above that you can enter them using the normal entry for Dividends and then add an adjustment on the Qualified Dividends line in the Tax Planner.
But if you know the dividends are Qualified when you receive them, you could record them as Miscellaneous Income using the _QualDivInc Category and add the adjustment on the Dividends line.
In the second case the Tax reports will show the Qualified dividends correctly but you would have to add the Dividends and Qualified Dividends to get the correct total.
This Idea has been around for a long time, but it is still worthwhile. Please review it, comment, and add your vote by going to the top of the discussion and clicking on the little up arrow below the vote count. When you have voted, the arrow will turn grey and the count should increase. If the count decreases, it means you have already voted. Click once more to restore your vote.
As of 11/18, it has 42 votes out of the 50 it needs to be considered for implementation.
Hello All,
The status of this Idea has been changed to Under Consideration as it has reached enough votes and has been submitted to our Product and Development team for further review.
My Charles Schwab Account also distinguishes the xaction as Qual Div Reinvest on my statement. Those are downloaded into Quicken (Quicken Classic Premier version 27.1.65.17) as a Div action. So that the Quicken Tax Planner is more accurate, I manually change those to Miscellaneous Income using the _QualDivInc category. I say that Quicken should download however the brokerage designates it. And of course all of the Quicken Tax Reports should be correct.
@rich Note that if you are categorizing dividends as _QualDivInc and you want the Tax Planner projections to be accurate, you should also add an adjustment to the Dividends line for the same amount.
As currently implemented, the Tax Planner entries should be the same as what is entered on the 1099-DIV and Schedule B: the Dividends line gets the total dividends and the Qualified Dividends line gets the portion that is Qualified.