Improve handling of IRA distributions, including QCDs and Roth conversions

Jim_Harman

As described in these recent posts
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7864610/missing-transactions-in-report-tax-summary#latest
and
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7864607/traditional-to-roth-conversion-and-tax-schedule#latest

and many others, the way Quicken handles taxable transactions in tax deferred accounts is convoluted and confusing, often causing incorrect tax reports and and incorrect data in the Tax Planner. 

The increasingly popular Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) also fall into this category.

Properly designed wizards or Macro transactions to handle these events would be a big help.

K.O. (Win-Premier)

Couldn't agree more and as the population using Quicken ages it will become more important to have the transactions (and tax effects) correct and make it simpler to add transactions.

Ranger

If there were a single macro transaction to make the multiple entries for the annual required distribution, it would be fantastic ! The use of multiple transactions leaves much to be desired and plenty of room for errors.

Jim_Harman

Further discussion of the difficulties of entering Roth conversions can be found here
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7810546/roth-ira-conversion

MemphisBBQ

I have been using Quicken since DOS3. When I began withdrawing from my IRA account I found it difficult to get the transactions correct so my report from my broker matched Quicken's calculations. The allocation from the broker included both the transfer to my bank and the amount sent to the IRS for my income tax. My Quicken solution was have one transaction match the amount actually deposited into my bank account and a separate transaction entered for the IRS tax payment as if it were transferred to the bank. Then I created a payment to the IRS for the amount that the broker had sent and I had recorded in the separate transfer. I can do a report at any time for all IRS transactions and they will display for me. No split transactions. I have no Roth transfers, but if I remember correctly, I would have a hard time setting them up to get the transfers correct.

chitownhockey

The typical transaction for IRA taxable distributions are as follows:

Set the Account Details of the retirement accounts to > Tax Schedule > Transfers Out:1099-R:Total IRA taxable Distr.

From the retirement account, sell the number of shares to equal the GROSS amount of your withdrawal.  This will leave a cash balance.

From the retirement account, use a transaction type of "Cash Transferred Out of Account" for the GROSS amount of your withdrawal, which usually is the cash balance as noted above.

This will transfer that amount to your checking account and Quicken will automatically tax report the GROSS amount of the IRA distribution.

From the checking account, locate the transfer transaction.  Split that transfer transaction so that the second line is Taxes: Federal Withholding and use a negative amount for the withholding taxes to the IRS.  You can add subsequent lines for any state or local withholding, as well.

This results in the NET amount deposited in your checking account.  

I actually have an Income Reminder setup for the split transaction portion in my checking account which is automatically entered each month.  Then all I have to do is sell the shares in the investment account.

Easy peasy.  

Ted109

I find that Quicken has given almost no thought to IRA withdrawals. In my case, these are transfers to a brokerage account. QCDs are impossible.

I a retired software developer and am adept at creating workarounds, most of which don't completely work when it comes to the reports Quicken should be able to do better.

Since1996

I agree. I did vote up.

There are more fundamental tax accounting issues with IRA's in Quicken; plus
there are reporting limitations.

* Distinguish between regular IRA accounts and ROTH accounts. Add a ROTH IRA account type.

* ROTH distributions can be non-taxable (or taxable if rules broken).
* Regular IRA contributions can be deductable or non-deductable.
* Regular IRA withdrawals are taxable except for non-deductable & QCD distribution rules.
* But funds can be transferred or rolled over between "same type" "IRA's" with no taxes due.
* The entire amount of a regular IRA withdrawal can be placed in a ROTH IRA with taxes
paid from other funds.

* For outbound IRA transfers, the UI is modified to ask, how much is taxable? For ROTH IRA's the default is zero. For regular IRA's, the default amount is the
amount transferred.

* By definition, an amount transferred out to a non-IRA account is a withdrawal, and a checkbox can be clicked to indicate it's an RMD.

* For inbound regular IRA's, the UI is modified to ask, how much is deductable?
The default is 0. If an amount is entered, ask for the tax year, if necessary.

* Currently, tax forms are associated at the overall account level. This is
incorrect for IRA's. Permit the selection of the tax form within individual IRA
transactions where funds are transferred between accounts. The default can be blank.

* Impacted transaction actions that need this follow-up dialog include those that cause funds to enter or exit a retirement account.

* Whenever asking for the tax year, permit the year to be 0 to signify a
non-taxable transfer, or add a selection that says "Non-Taxable Transfer".

Once you do the above at a fundamental level, you can handle the split case with a wizard. Ask how much of the regular IRA withdrawal is being held for taxes by the provider, how much is a QCD, and then transfer the remainder, if any, to the destination account, which could be a ROTH IRA.

Sometimes a transfer is "in-kind" and sometimes it's swapped for another security and sometimes its liquidated to cash first. Sometimes it's a complete account rollover and sometimes it's specific securities. The wizard could handle whole account swaps such as 401k to IRA.

Add new investment reports more geared to retirement accounts. While capital
gains cost basis has no meaning in IRA's, contribution basis and total return does. Market value = Contributions + Return. Distinguish between taxable and non-taxable transfers.

Note that some non-taxable transfers may still require a tax form to be filed. Also what is important for tax reporting purposes is the market value of the transfer and feed that number to the tax planner as well as the taxable amount. Both values must be reported to the IRS.

For Quicken Standard Reports, add a Savings section:
* How much have I saved in tax advantaged investment accounts? By year, show the contribution, total return added, and current market value, followed by a grand total line. Allow a breakdown by retirement account & account type.
* What account transfers have I made with retirement accounts? How much is taxable? How much taxes were withheld? How much was gifted? How much are RMD's?
* How have my retirement accounts performed? Capital gains and dividends are irrelevant here. It's the total return that counts. Include that plus amount
invested (contributions) and current market value by year.

For long-term product functionality growth, when a retirement account is created or edited, provide entry for the date of birth of the account owner and a checkbox to indicate if the IRA is inherited.

DeeLee

now that i am retired and my income is Social Security, Pension, Investment income, and RMDs from IRA accounts, I am very unhappy with Quicken right now: Just moved my accounts to a new WIndows 10 PC and was trying to update things to reflect my retiree income. To find that there is no good way to put in RMD payments and get accurate results is crazy. Please work to bring you program up to date for the may baby boomers that use it!

Steve Sucher

I agree with comments above that dealing with tax deferred accounts needs to be improved within Quicken.

BillG2

RMDs and QCDs are tricky. Errors are easy to make because the IRS forms are misleading. Help from Quicken on at least reporting what was and was not done would be very helpful.

Paul Williams

I was searching the Q Community for how to handle IRA QCDs (normally I just don't enter them into Quicken) and taxable transfers from a non-Roth IRA to a brokerage account. Imagine my disappointment after reading is string of comments.

BillG2

I've now used the workaround described in the links in Jim_Harman's initial post in this thread. They make it so tax reporting at least hints to the tax preparer that QCDs are used. But now it seems that when I download the posted transactions, expect to match Withdraw transactions and won't work with WithdrawX transactions that are necessary to make the QCDs show up in tax reporting. I agree that having QCD as a wizard or investment transaction type would be a big help.

CMRater

I always tout Quicken as the ultimate financial management software.  Not that I am retired have performed a roth conversion and plan to make withdrawels from tax deferred accounts, I am very surprised that Quicken is not Retirement Friendly.

I would like to hear from Quicken if they plan to address what is a basic feature in the near term as this missing capability is a major flaw/gap in the software!

Paresh Buch

I support this request. I could use a more retirement friendly version of Quicken.

JWQ

Hello Quicken,

It is past time to get on this issue. Please keep up with changes that impact your customers.

jwschmalz

I agree with the commentary. I was not aware of this problem until I started Roth conversions a few years ago. I have not yet begun to withdraw money from my taxable and non-taxable accounts, but after reviewing this thread, I'm certainly not looking forward to tracking it using Quicken. Please update Quicken to support your users.

UKR

There's a related discussion here:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7880904/how-to-enter-a-check-written-from-an-ira-for-qualified-charitable-deduction-from-ira#latest

It seems to boil down to adding a tax line item for Form 1099R: Qualified Charitable Distributions to Quicken.

ron#senior

I'm new to IRA withdrawals and QCD's... How do I "vote up" this topic? Yes, it is really needed!
It appears that not much thought has been given to distributions from IRA's. How to manage meeting RMD (Required Minimum Distributions) especially over multiple IRA accounts (or 401k). Calculating RMD from previous year-end balance...
I know, I want it all! I would be happy with solving the QCD issue. :)

Since1996

For RMD's with existing Quicken, I created an IRA account report that sums up all the balances excluding ROTH and inherited IRA accounts. Then I take that December 31st total and use the IRS tables to calculate the RMD for regular IRA accounts. A short-cut for tax planning purposes:
https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calculators/required-minimum-distribution-calculator
but you will have to adjust the answer for the QCD's.
(I calculate inherited IRA account RMD's separately.)

andyc3

As one who has commented several times previously about the inefficiencies and limitations of QB IRA handling I appreciate all of the analyses and suggestions above. QB team needs to do a bottom up systems analysis and re-coding of IRA (of all types) processing, starting with assumptions about correct characterization of IRA accounts to enable withdrawals.QB enforces too many assumptions about how IRAs "should" behave that are not justified by IRS rules/regs or by custodian practices. As many have already pointed out, IRA handling will become increasingly important over time. The analysis that represented IRA rules circa 1990 is siimly too limited for today's IRA options.

Jim_Harman

An additional point on this topic: People now often write checks on their IRAs for QCDs. Apparently there is currently no way to print these checks the way there is with other accounts, you need to write them by hand. 

Tom Scott

I use checks to do my Qualified Charitable Distributions (charitable contributions) from our 2 IRAs. WE support over 30 different charities and have to write checks manually from our IRA accounts. I just spent $60 ordering laser checks for each account. I discovered today that they are useless for this purpose. Please make IRA accounts eligible to have a linked checking account just like a Brokerage account. [Removed - Disruptive]

BHTexas

I hope Quicken staff is working on resolving these IRA and QCD issues. As some have already said, there's more than a few of us who have reached this stage in life, have used Q for years and want it to offer simpler ways to handle IRA transfers and distributions. Thanks.

Cindi Anderson

I don't know where the list is to upvote but definitely Roth accounts need to be separated from non-Roth. Maybe I should have set my Roth's up as non-retirement accounts, but can't change it now.

Cindi Anderson

There's a tax-deferred yes/no button. Maybe they need to add a third category so there's: tax deferred, tax not deferred, tax already paid

Jim_Harman

@Cindi Anderson note that when creating an IRA account there is an opportunity to specify it as Roth and this affects how the account is treated in the Tax Planner and Lifetime planner.

Unfortunately there is currently no way to change a Traditional to a Roth account once it has been created.

To upvote an Idea, go to the top post of the thread and click on the little up arrow under the number.  

FlyerFran

I, too, use QCD's and again request that SoldX & BoughtX transactions be added back for RMD transctions from IRA's.  

CeilP

I agree that a simple method for RMD distributions is needed, including the ability to copy/paste for monthly distributions. I can't do this now. I have to manually add the transaction each month.

dpjenkins23

[Removed - Rant]

dpjenkins23

[Removed - Violation of Community Guidelines]