Projected Tax Report not working properly

marknashburn

This has gone on for years and I'm not sure why this never works for me. The Projected Tax report under Tax Planner never seems to save my choices where I want to select scheduled bills and deposits for future estimates and instead resets constantly to either estimate based on YTD average or no projected amount. Because of this my projected amount is always way off. What am I doing wrong?

Quicken Francisco

Hello @marknashburn

Thank you for reaching out on the community and telling us about your issue. I do apologize for the issue you're having. I'm wondering if the reason that you might not be getting full reports is due to categories not having a tax line item attached. I would recommend by going across the top to tools > Category list. You can double click on a category if there's no category line attached and add one. I'll also leave an article down below that'll show more information about tax line items and reports that may also help.

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216775

Please let us know if this helps resolve the issue for you.

Thanks,

Quicken Francisco

marknashburn

Thank you Francisco. That's not my problem. In the tax planner it is the items from my paycheck that are the affected items. They show up in the planner on the right tax lines and it's fine when I click the button to use the scheduled items. The problem is that Quicken will not leave those settings and constantly reverts them to estimate based on YTD average.

marknashburn

I'll add on that when I look at say the wages line in Tax Planner there is a box that says Quicken suspects that this value may not be correct, if you have not tracked a paycheck from the beginning of the year you may need to enter an adjustment value. This is not the case as I have tracked from the beginning of the year.

Quicken Francisco

@marknashburn

Thanks for the update. If you wouldn't mind could we get a couple of screenshots that help illustrate the issue a bit more. These should help us get a better idea and maybe see why these settings aren't saving each time you come back. I'll leave steps below on how to do so.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7867159/faq-how-do-i-post-a-screenshot-in-the-community-from-windows#latest

Note you may need to drag the photos into the response box so that you're able to add the photos. 

Once you get the chance let us know a bit more and we'll see what we can try. 

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

kriffle

I have this same problem exactly as explained. It makes tax planning very difficult. It would be great if this could be fixed. Today, it is even stranger. On one item the correct box is checked (scheduled bill and deposits), but the amount used is "no projected amount". On another entry, the default goes back to No projected amount. It changes every time I go to the tax planner. Never know what result I am going to get

kriffle

Trying to add screenshots

marknashburn

Sorry for the delay here are my screenshots

marknashburn

The default is always estimate based on YTD average and no matter how many times I select use scheduled bills and deposits it always reverts back to estimate based on YTD average.

Ray Cosner

Q changing the selection for projecting future tax categories, not retaining the user selection to use scheduled transactions - this has been a problem literally for years.  I have reported it several times via Help | Report a Problem, most recently a few months ago. 

I sent them screen shots with annotations. I offered to show them the problem in real time.  I kept records on when it happened and I sent them info on scenarios where this problem was 100% repeatable. A couple times the Q moderator in this forum gave me a sympathetic comment and apologized for lack of a fix, but that was the limit of assistance from the Q team.  This problem apparently does not rise to the level where they prioritize it to be addressed.

Occasionally, over the years, an update has changed the circumstances when this issue occurs.  That last happened in October, and the issue has been less frequent since then.  But the underlying problem of not retaining the user selection for YE projection remains, only the specific circumstances when the issue occurs have changed.

Perhaps you can read my frustration in this comment.  

Ray Cosner

Running a file validate sometimes fixes this problem for a couple weeks (at least, for me).  Also, it can help make corrections "stick" once I've corrected the settings in Tax Planner - for a while.

Ray Cosner

For me, one part of the trigger for this problem is updating my Q data in their cloud, for use with Q Mobile.  I have numerous examples of my Tax Planner data being good immediately before a cloud update, and being corrupted immediately after.  To me, that's what they call a smoking gun.  

Before I got the bright (sic) idea of using Quicken Mobile on my phone, and thus updating my data to the Quicken Cloud, my Tax Planner data had been rock-solid for more than a year.  

Another element of what causes the problem, for me, is when I'm synchronizing a new income transaction just received from my bank via OSU - a transaction that includes expense splits for tax withholding or other tax-category expenses.  That, combined with the next cloud update, forms the 100% repeatable failure scenario I communicated to Quicken.  Seems like that info would have been a great help to someone at Q trying to fix the problem, but I sent that to them 4 or 5 months ago and the problem remains.

Q Mobile is very convenient, and I hate to give it up, but the price seems to be the recurring nuisance of corrupted Tax Planner data.  Apparently I can have my current data in the Q cloud for use on Q Mobile, or I can have stable and accurate data in Tax Planner, but I can't have both.

Matthew

I'm having this exact same problem and found that as Ray Cosner suggested, I performed a validate and repair on the file. Went into the Tax Planner. The "Estimate Based on YTD Daily Average" was still defaulted, but when I chose the "Scheduled Bills and Deposits", this time it "stuck" and stayed selected when I closed the Tax Planner and then went back in. I even closed Quicken and went back into the Tax Planner and was still set to "Scheduled Bills and Deposits". I'm not sure how long it will "hold", but it appears a Validate and Repair will fix it. At least it did for me - and Ray.

kriffle

The validate and repair is not working for me.. But I am having trouble running the validation. It validates the file, than tries to review stock splits and causes Quicken to stop running. When I check the validation log, it says the validation passed ok. I did stop the QMobile app. Tax planner still NOT holding at "scheduled bills and deposits.". Looking forward to a fix from Quicken.

Ray Cosner

@kriffle - Sorry to hear you have this issue too, but you're the first one with this problem to confirm they're also using Q Mobile - it's not just me.  I don't think it's Q Mobile specifically, it's the cloud sync.....

Sounds like you have a second problem, since (as I read your message) file validation causes Q to fail.  Have you tried a super-validate - hold down the shift key when you click on validate in the menu?  Make a backup copy of your working file first - just in case.

Also, for mysterious QDF file issues a frequent recommendation is to do a File / Copy to create a new QDF file, and see if you still have trouble using the new one.  This File / Copy apparently also gets rid of debris in the file, it does more than just a binary copy.  The first time I did that, my new copied QDF file was 10 MB smaller than the one I had copied from, but there was no visible change in my actual data using the new copy.  Don't get rid of the original QDF file until you're satisfied that the new copy QDF is good.  You can always go back to using the original.

@Matthew - are you doing a sync to the Quicken Cloud too?

Matthew

@Ray Cosner - no, I am not doing a sync to the Quicken Cloud. I am running the most recent Quicken Deluxe on Windows 10 Pro. As of today, the radio button selection "Scheduled Bills and Deposits" is still holding. Fingers crossed - LOL.

Ray Cosner

@Matthew - If you're willing to get drafted into helping understand this problem, in case anyone at Quicken ever gets interested, then kindly.....

Check Tax Planner at the end of each session.  If you find the data is corrupted, make notes of what you did in that session and save them.

You may be facing a different trigger for the problem than I am.  My problem arises in the condition I described above (OSU confirmation from my bank of an income transaction with expense splits into other tax categories, followed by a cloud sync - even if the next sync is done days later).  It only occurs for me under those conditions.  Before I started using Q Mobile (and syncing to the cloud) I had the same recurring income transactions and Tax Planner was well behaved

I'm running the subscription version of Quicken Premier on Windows 10 Home.  Both Quicken and Windows are current on all updates.

kriffle

Ray Cosner, Thanks for suggestion for ways to validate the file that may be causing the tax problem. I did as you suggested and still get the error (my file contains stock data back to the 90s). I have also stopped using Qmobile. I find the tax planner way more important to me. Still checking to see if the planner will hold on "scheduled" info. The problem continues. Still hoping for a fix by Quicken. Not too worried about file validation issue. Had that for a long time, does not seem to interfere with anything but Qmobile.

Ray Cosner

I also have stock transactions in Quicken going back to the 1990s.  I have one validation issue that I can't get past - it comes from a stock split that occurred in 1996.  Otherwise, my validation reports are clean.

It's good to have hope for a fix.  I remember when I did.  I won't comment further, because I've had a recent post substantially edited and marked unhelpful by the moderator due to a snarky comment I couldn't resist making.

WizardDoc

I have the same problem. Drives me crazy. It seemed to work last year, this year will not remember that I want it to show me "scheduled bills and deposits" for both myself and wife.

My wife and I both work, it will remember mine - but not hers. Even more strange.

I open the planner settings, make the changes - it shows me the correct info. I exit out of the settings (there is no "save" option) and then it defaults back to the wrong data again - showing the same issue as the OP.

I have tried validation and repair in Jan - no issues where found and did not fix my problem.

I just did another validation and repair - it seems to have at least saved the changes for the current session - I will see if it holds.

markus1957

When this happens and I run validate; often scheduled reminders will be shown as repaired.

Today I found it happening for one section in the planner and digging in to it, found a scheduled reminder with Split categories had somehow been changed to include an unallocated amount in the split.  I fixed that and it is back to normal.

I had recently performed a validate and had turned on Cloud Sync briefly to test something unrelated.  I suspect sync messed with the reminder. My advice would be to take a hard look at the scheduled reminders in the section giving you problems to make sure they are correct. Maybe change a value, save it and change it back to write over any corruption in the data record.