Income on Quicken Tax Report Doesn't Match W-2 (Q Mac)

Austin@

This is my first time using Quicken Mac for doing taxes through TurboTax. I've carefully tracked all of my paychecks, but when I run the Tax Report in Quicken or export a TXF file to import into TurboTax, the income shown from Quicken doesn't match my W-2. It looks like Quicken is showing my gross salary, whereas my W-2 only shows taxable income (doesn't include non-taxable health insurance premiums, HSA contributions, etc.). Is it possible to get Quicken to export the taxable income amount so that when I import my TXF file into TurboTax it loads the correct amount that matches my W-2?

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @Austin@

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your issue, although I apologize that you haven't received a response.

If you navigate to Window > Categories and find the categories for the deductions from the paycheck, are the tax assignments for W-2 or for From 1040?

To confirm this, double click on the category and navigate to the Tax related section.


Please let me know!

-Quicken Tyka

Austin@

Thanks @Quicken_Tyka. I've gone and assigned the correct tax line to each pre-tax deduction category from my paycheck, which has largely fixed the problem. The only transactions that I can't get to deduct properly are the transfers from my paycheck into my HSA account. These are pre-tax deductions taken directly from my paycheck, so they lower my overall taxable income (which in turn affects the amount listed on my W-2). The amount that shows up on my Quicken tax schedule report for the salary portion of my W-2 is off by the exact amount of these transfers into my HSA. Because these are transfers and not regular categories that can be assigned a tax line, I can't get them to be included in the amount Quicken calculates for the salary portion of the W-2 on the tax schedule report (which causes the TXF file I export for TurboTax to also be incorrect). Do you have any ideas or workarounds for how to associate transfers from my paycheck into my HSA with a tax line assignment?

Quicken_Tyka

Hello Austin,

Thank you for the response and for providing more details.

First, I would navigate to "Columns" and the "Transfer" column the HSA and the checking account.









Once the "Transfer" column has been added, a category can be assigned and the "Transfer" column can be used to complete the transfer.




Be sure that the category used for these transactions has a tax assignment.

Let me know how it goes!

-Quicken Tyka

jacobs

I would respectfully disagree with @Quicken_Tyka. What she says will work currently, but it won't in the future. Due to a quirk in the way Quicken Mac was originally  designed, a transfer of funds can also be assigned an expense category. From a true accounting perspective, that's incorrect; a funds transfer is not an expense or visa versa. The Quicken Mac product manager has posted in this forum that Quicken management has decided to end this loophole as they build out the ability to generate reports on a cash flow basis, and will eventually remove the ability to have categories assigned to transfers.

(I can't give you a definitive answer; I actually don't use the values from Quicken for my tax return; I just enter my W-2s from the forms, not from Quicken's values.)

Austin@

@jacobs that was my thought too. I remember reading a post from @Quicken Marcus that the plan is for that functionality (assigning an expense category to a transfer) to go away, so this suggestion doesn’t look like a sustainable option. I don’t think I’d want to go this direction even if it wasn’t in the plans to take away the ability to categorize a transfer, cause I don’t want transfers into my HSA to show up in reports as an expense. 

So unfortunately, it looks like there is just no way currently to get Quicken Mac to recognize pre-tax transfers as a tax line item. I hope that someday Quicken Mac will allow you to set certain accounts as tax deferred and associate transfers into those accounts with a tax line like you can in Quicken Windows. One can hope. 

Even though I don’t think this workaround will work for me, I appreciate the suggestion @Quicken_Tyka

justanobody

As a temporary workaround until the Quicken Mac managers actually let users pick and choose which accounts to include to include and exclude from transfers in the Tax Report and Budget module:

I would create two new split lines in your payroll transaction.

One split line would negate the HSA contribution transfer. I would categorize it as "Adjustment" and use the opposite symbol as the HSA amount. Thus, if you're transferring $100 to the HSA (which would be a -$100), I would add a split line of Adjustment for a positive $100.

The next split line item I would categorize as "HSA Payment", where "HSA Payment" has the correct Schedule A tax line item assigned. And that would be a -$100 amount.

You'll get the same net amount, the amount will be transferred to the HSA account and you'll be able to get the category to transfer to your TurboTax. For some reason, Quicken Mac will ignore the "Adjustment" category in almost every report, while keeping the accounting offset.

It's a very unwieldy solution, however, to what should be an easy thing to do.

I too, changed this year from categorizing transfers...anticipating the upcoming discontinuation of that process. And having a category AND a transfer never allowed me to account for those categories in the Quicken Mac budget. You'll now be able to budget for that HSA Payment in the Budget feature. It's really poorly though out on Quicken's part.