Recording gifts in Quicken for tax reporting purposes

tsmyth

I am new to Quicken. Thanks in advance for any answers to my question.

I believe Quicken will interface with tax reporting software such as Turbotax. [removed-innacurate]

If I receive a cash gift and it is recorded in Quicken as a deposit in my checking account, how do I categorize it for tax purposes so that it won't be calculated as taxable income?

When manually entering this deposit I created a new category. There is a Tax Reporting tab in the New Category setup window. Is this where I would somehow categorize this gift as non-taxable income?

Or perhaps this is not a distinction made in Quicken. Income is income regardless of the tax implications.

Mark1104

go to your category list and then right click on the gift category and then click 'edit'. The 2nd tab is 'tax reporting' - make sure everything is blank - it probably is already. 

note that Quicken and Turbo Tax have been separate companies for a few years. While Intuit owns Turbo Tax, it spun off Quicken 2-3 years ago.

While it is true that you can import tax reporting info from Quicken to Turbo Tax, you want to be careful what you actually import.  For example, even though you may keep very detailed records of you salary and dividends in Quicken, the 'system of record' (and what is reported to the IRS) is your W-2 (which often can be imported directly from your employer or their agent) and your broker, bank, etc. is the 'system of record' for dividends and interest.  Just be careful what you import from Quicken is my recommendation 

BK

I second what @Mark1104 wrote on all fronts.

First, my personal experience showed me that I would spend too much time if I were to use Quicken for tax exporting.  I don't.  I only use it as a reference.  Because (a) I have to make sure that Quicken's data is 100% accurate and (b) double check that the imported data into the tax program matches that of your financial institutions.

Second on the gift, I went to Category List > Personal Income and created a new category for this purpose (e.g. Monetary Gift) with Tax Reporting being blank.  This approach allows me to keep this monetary gift separate from the other gifts in the Personal Expense section's Gift category.

Neither approach is better than the other, rather it all depends on your circumstances and over time you will develop your personal preferences especially when it comes to generating custom reports - which is one of the most useful features.  Finally know that you can play and test all approaches and change/move the categories and Quicken will handle the changes flawless.

tsmyth

Thanks for the very good answers.

And I think I understand about the tax mapping issues from Quicken to tax prep software.