Missing Tax line item for this category: Form 8936 Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle C

ewilansky

I'm using Quicken Premier (version R46.12, build 27.1.46.12) and want to assign a Tax line item for a category. However, there is no tax line item for Form 8936, which is usually attached with Schedule K-1. This form is also not listed as a sub-line item of Schedule K-1. Note, that I'm not asking how to add or customize a category. Instead, I need to add a missing form in the list of Tax line items.

Boatnmaniac

Quicken is not a tax software.  It offers some tax reporting and planning features but it lacks a lot of forms.  As you discovered, Form 8936 is one of those not included in Quicken, nor is there a line for it under K-1....at least not in Quicken Premier.  I do not know if Quicken Home & Business might include these options.  Perhaps someone who has Home & Business will pipe in here with what it does or does not include regarding these.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us to add a tax form or schedule that Quicken does not include.  There is a Product Idea that has been posted about this that you might want to read.  The more users who vote for an Idea the more likely it is that Quicken will add it to their development plan.:  Allow Users to Add Tax Forms to Tax Planner (+18 Merged Votes).  If you agree with the Idea, be sure to vote for it as shown in the example in picture. 

Boatnmaniac

Quicken is not a tax software.  It offers some tax reporting and planning features but it lacks a lot of forms.  As you discovered, Form 8936 is one of those not included in Quicken, nor is there a line for it under K-1....at least not in Quicken Premier.  I do not know if Quicken Home & Business might include these options.  Perhaps someone who has Home & Business will pipe in here with what it does or does not include regarding these.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us to add a tax form or schedule that Quicken does not include.  There is a Product Idea that has been posted about this that you might want to read.  The more users who vote for an Idea the more likely it is that Quicken will add it to their development plan.:  Allow Users to Add Tax Forms to Tax Planner (+18 Merged Votes).  If you agree with the Idea, be sure to vote for it as shown in the example in picture. 

ewilansky

Thanks for the suggestion, Boatnmaniac. I upvoted the post and bookmarked it as you suggested. I agree that Quicken isn't tax software. However, that doesn't mean Quicken should take users part way to a solution and then stop there. In this case, and as I commented on the post your referred me to, there should be facility to add tax line items or some sensible hack to remediate this shortcoming. The only one I came up with was to record the form number in a custom category name and associate the category with a tax line item that approximates the proper entry, like a more general schedule K-1 line item. This is far from perfect, but adequate for generating a workable report.

Boatnmaniac

ewilansky said:

Thanks for the suggestion, Boatnmaniac. I upvoted the post and bookmarked it as you suggested. I agree that Quicken isn't tax software. However, that doesn't mean Quicken should take users part way to a solution and then stop there. In this case, and as I commented on the post your referred me to, there should be facility to add tax line items or some sensible hack to remediate this shortcoming. The only one I came up with was to record the form number in a custom category name and associate the category with a tax line item that approximates the proper entry, like a more general schedule K-1 line item. This is far from perfect, but adequate for generating a workable report.

Thanks for voting for and commenting on the New Idea post.

I agree that there should be a means to better handle these less common tax forms in Tax Planner and the Tax Reports.  I have to do some workarounds myself for a few deductions and tax credits that will get me in the ballpark but it also means that the value of being able to export my Quicken data into TurboTax, H&R Block and perhaps other tax software programs is pretty much negated.  So, I never do that anymore because I find it easier and more accurate to simply manually enter all the data into the tax software than it is to review and troubleshoot the data entry errors in the tax software.

Chris_QPW

ewilansky said:

However, that doesn't mean Quicken should take users part way to a solution and then stop there. 

To me that is exactly what it means.  If it took you all the way, it would be a tax program.
There are plenty of examples of this throughout Quicken.  The Lifetime Planner being one of them.

ewilansky

Is it really too much to add the ability to enter our own tax line entries? I use an accountant and to optimize on that service, I do all I can to hand her an accurate report that is aligned to the proper tax line assignments.

I agree that Quicken isn’t a tax program, but it is software designed to track income and expenses. To that end, properly categorizing these register entries for the purpose of reporting taxable activity to my accountant is important.

Boatnmaniac

ewilansky said:

Is it really too much to add the ability to enter our own tax line entries? I use an accountant and to optimize on that service, I do all I can to hand her an accurate report that is aligned to the proper tax line assignments.

I agree that Quicken isn’t a tax program, but it is software designed to track income and expenses. To that end, properly categorizing these register entries for the purpose of reporting taxable activity to my accountant is important.

I'm no programmer but note that the Product Idea I had directed you to was posted in Apr 2020.  If it were easy to implement this change I think it would have been done by now.  As it is, if it is not already in the product development plan (which current status indicates it is not) I seriously doubt that it would/could be implemented before this tax season is done.

Unless and until this change to the product can be implemented you might want to consider, at the appropriate time, exporting your tax reports to Excel, edit them to add lines for the 8936 data there and then provide those Excel files to your accountant. 

Or just give your accountant the tax reports from Quicken and give the 8936 forms/data at the same time but on a separate sheet.

Another idea is to set up a custom category in Quicken for "Misc Tax-Related Expenses" and add a sub-category for you 8936.  Add a manual offline Spending account (credit card type might be good)...name it what you want.  Enter a transaction in it using the 8936 expense along with a note about it in the Memo field.  If you find there are other tax related expenses and income for which there are no tax forms in Quicken, you can use this account to add transactions and memos for them, too.  Then print out the report at the appropriate time and give it to your accountant along with the tax reports.

If I were in your shoes, this last option is what I might do because Quicken will still be of help in tracking the information.

q_lurker

Along the direction @Boatnmaniac is suggesting, I would consider using Tags on the 'normal' transactions such that those transactions could be separately reported to your accountant.

In this particular case, the Form 8936 appears to be for electric vehicles placed in service and would not have a particular association to a K-1 form.  (Note I am not playing tax specialist with these comments since I am not by any means.)      

Mark1104

@ewilansky - isn't this as simple of telling your accountant you MAY BE eligible for the EV credit? that credit is now quite complicated as it is predicated upon 1) the car being manufactured in North America, 2) the battery content meeting certain guildelines, 3) the MSPR being below certain thresholds, 4) the AGI being below certain thresholds either the year the auto was placed in service or the year prior to being placed in service.  

And after all that, if the entire EV credit can be used in the year the auto was purchased, the unused portion can't be rolled over to the next year.

What entry in Quicken would reflect all that? and why vs. just explaining to the accountant that an EV was purchased.  

As noted QUicken is designed to track income and expense.  The EV credit is neither.