How to Create a Report Listing All Tax-Deductible Expenses (Q Mac)

Kentucky Fran

Last year, using an older version of Quicken for Mac, I created a report that listed all expenses in tax-deductible categories (medical, non-profit donations, church, etc.). This year, the only tax-related report option I see is "Tax Schedule," and it gives me only the basic Form 1040 stuff (income, tax withheld-self). Is there a way to produce a single report with all deductible categories, or must I create a separate report for every such category? (Sorry for double-posting. My first attempt went to the Windows section.)

J_Mike

QMac's Tax Schedule Report should do exactly what you want - summarize all tax related income and expense related items.

This assumes you have properly categorized these items and that you have the proper tax line assignments for all of the tax related categories.
Also, verify that the report customization settings are correct: e.g., All Categories, All Taxable accounts, etc.

jacobs

@Kentucky Fran  Which older version were you previously using? If you've updated from the old Quicken 2007 for Mac, or migrated form Quicken Windows, the categories used by those prior versions are likely different than the ones used by default in Quicken Mac.

Take a look at one of your expenses in 2020 which you'd expect to see in a tax report, such as a charitable deduction or medical expense. See what category you used, then open the Categories window (Widows > Categories) and look for that category. If it doesn't have  green checkmark in the Tax-related column, that's why this expense isn't showing in your tax report.

Where to go from here generally has a choice of two paths: (1) you could change the categories you've already used to tax-related, and in the subsequent dialog box, codify what tax line each one should be attached to, or (2) if you find Quicken Mac already has a tax-related category different than the one you used, you could find all your transactions using that category and edit them to use Quicken's tax-related category. 

I'll give you an example. In my Quicken 2007, I had a category called Charity, with two sub-categories of "Tax Ded" and "Non-Tax Ded". When I moved to modern Quicken Mac, those categories migrated with me, and all my transactions stayed the same --but my "Charity:Tax Ded" category is not marked as Tax-Related. Quicken Mac has its own default category for this same purpose -- Gifts & Donations:Charity -- which is marked as tax-related, and is coded as a Schedule A charitable contribution.

J_Mike

QMac's Tax Schedule Report should do exactly what you want - summarize all tax related income and expense related items.

This assumes you have properly categorized these items and that you have the proper tax line assignments for all of the tax related categories.
Also, verify that the report customization settings are correct: e.g., All Categories, All Taxable accounts, etc.

jacobs

@Kentucky Fran  Which older version were you previously using? If you've updated from the old Quicken 2007 for Mac, or migrated form Quicken Windows, the categories used by those prior versions are likely different than the ones used by default in Quicken Mac.

Take a look at one of your expenses in 2020 which you'd expect to see in a tax report, such as a charitable deduction or medical expense. See what category you used, then open the Categories window (Widows > Categories) and look for that category. If it doesn't have  green checkmark in the Tax-related column, that's why this expense isn't showing in your tax report.

Where to go from here generally has a choice of two paths: (1) you could change the categories you've already used to tax-related, and in the subsequent dialog box, codify what tax line each one should be attached to, or (2) if you find Quicken Mac already has a tax-related category different than the one you used, you could find all your transactions using that category and edit them to use Quicken's tax-related category. 

I'll give you an example. In my Quicken 2007, I had a category called Charity, with two sub-categories of "Tax Ded" and "Non-Tax Ded". When I moved to modern Quicken Mac, those categories migrated with me, and all my transactions stayed the same --but my "Charity:Tax Ded" category is not marked as Tax-Related. Quicken Mac has its own default category for this same purpose -- Gifts & Donations:Charity -- which is marked as tax-related, and is coded as a Schedule A charitable contribution.

Kentucky Fran

Thank you for responding, jacobs. I followed your suggestion and found a number of categories that needed that green check mark. I've corrected all of those. I suspect now that my process is wrong for the result I hope to get. I open Checking, I click Last Year I> Spending > Any Status. I then click "Reports" at the top of the checking window. I get a vertical list of options within the window. I click Tax. The only option I get is "Tax Schedule," which gives me only income for Form 1040. Unless there's an easy fix for this, I'm going to rely on "Transactions by Category." It shows all categories, but I can pick out the ones I know to be deductible and get the job done. Thanks again.

Kentucky Fran

Thanks, J–Mike. I have been fairly diligent in assigning categories, but I did find a few that I missed. Your info took me to a Quicken feature that I was not using to develop a category summary. That's a big help. I appreciate your response.

jacobs

Tax Schedule is the correct report. You can get it directly from the Reports menu; no n3ed to navigate the way you described.

And the process I described above will let you change the tax assignment of any category, or change categories to ones already assigned for taxes, whenever is less work.

Kentucky Fran

I tried it again and it gave me exactly what I had hoped to get. Thanks again for your help.

Oconnellsf

I just migrated from 2007 to 2017. I used to be able to get a full year end report of all transactions in a category, which I used for my taxes. How can I create this report that shows every expense in each category? And how can I click on a particular expense and change the category?

Kentucky Fran

Sorry, (Oconnellsf, I don't know the answer to your question. I'm struggling to figure out how to do these things myself. I do have a suggestion: You may want to post your question in a new thread instead of in this conversation. More people will see it there, so you're likely to get more responses.

karbanks

How do you change the date on the tax schedule report. it will only give me the current year and I want the past year.

jacobs

karbanks said:

How do you change the date on the tax schedule report. it will only give me the current year and I want the past year.

As with any report, click Edit and change the Date Range to "Last Year".

MaryTurck

This looks like the right conversation. - I need help! In previous years, I could create reports that listed charitable giving in a way that works for taxes: category=charity and tag=which charity. This year, when I try to get a report, it shows me the credit card I used to make the donation--nothing about the tag. I'm using Quicken 6.1.1 on Mac.

jacobs

@MaryTurck  I'm a little confused. Isn't the Payee the charity to which you gave the gift? I'm not clear why you have tags involved. For my records, I simply print a report of gifts to my charitable giving category, and I get a list of gifts by Payee. Tags aren't involved.

Please explain more about how you enter your charitable gifts and what you're trying to see in your reports so we can help.

MaryTurck

Since I pay by credit card, payee shows the credit card name. Then I enter category and tag for each transaction.

jacobs

Ah, I understand now.

First, let's take an aside about how to record credit card expenses. It sounds like you're entering your credit card payments in your checking account, with a lot of split lines for each individual credit card charge. That's definitely not the best way to handle credit cards in Quicken. Instead, you should create a new account in the left sidebar for each credit card. Then you can click on the account and enter individual transactions for each credit card purchase you make. This allows you to record the date of each transaction, and you can have splits if a transaction has multiple expense categories.

When you get your credit card statement, you can reconcile it against the transactions in your Quicken credit card account, just like you reconcile your checking account. And when you pay your credit card bill, you enter a simple transaction in your checking account for the amount you paid, with a transfer your credit card account, to reduce the outstanding balance of the credit card.

It's a whole different way of thinking about entering your credit card transactions, but it will solve a host of problems and complexities with the way you're doing it currently. Including no need to apply Tags from a long list of tags to separate out what should be separate Payees. (If you need more help with understanding this, post back and we can delve into if further.)

Back to the question you originally asked now.  I think you can get the report you're looking for by doing this:

• Click Reports in the top header, and click the Transaction section.
• Double-click "Transactions by Tag".
• Click Edit and set the date range to last year.
• Then click the Categories tab, click Clear All at the bottom, and then check the Category for charitable gifts.
• Click OK

This will give you a report by Tags -- which you're using as a substitute for Payees -- for only the transactions during the year which were categorized as charitable contributions. 

MaryTurck

Okay - I will work on the credit card angle for the coming year. I went back and reviewed all of last year's statements and recorded the charitable donations for those charities that didn't send a year-end report.
The transactions-by-tag report doesn't include any of the credit card transactions, so no luck there. But at least I have a better way to do credit cards going forward! Thanks for the help.

jacobs

MaryTurck said:

The transactions-by-tag report doesn't include any of the credit card transactions, so no luck there. 

Hmm, that's odd. I just tested such a report, and I do see the tagged transactions from split transactions showing up as I'd expect. It should work.