Can you set the tax status of an Account on Quicken for MAC?

John 411

I can find direction to set the tax status of an account for windows version but not for the MAC version. Am I missing something? This is related to ab IRA Account.

Jon

There's nothing you can do in Quicken Mac on an account level other than setting the account type to either a retirement account (such as IRA) or a taxable account.

jacobs

What are you looking to do? Quicken knows that IRA accounts have earnings which are tax-free, and therefore won't show up in your tax reports. There's nothing to set other than defining the account as an IRA.

John 411

I am looking to include my IRA's in my budget. When I add them, all income shows as taxable. I know I can mark the assets in the IRA individually but I also have them taxable accounts. I have seen in the instructions for windows a setting at the account level for tax status. I don't see it in the MAC version.

jacobs

Hmmm, I'd still like more information about what you're wanting to do. A budget deals only with income and expenses. Typically, one isn't paying expenses out of an IRA account, and the only income is dividends and capital gains, which is not taxable income. So I'm curious why you're wanting to include your IRA account in your budget.

Also, the budget doesn't show taxability of investment income. If you choose to include an IRA account in your budget, and you include all the Investment income categories in your budget, then your budget will include all the investment income in the IRA account. It doesn't show as taxable income, simply as Income > Investments.

I think most people would choose not to include their retirement accounts in their budget. But if you want to, there is nothing which separates taxable from non-taxable income in the budget. You'd have to run a Tax report to see your investment income which is taxable.

John 411

What I am asking the community is this. Quicken for windows has a feature to mark an entire account as non taxable. I see no way to do this on Quicken for MAC. Am I missing something? If you aren't aware of a feature or method that's fine.

Not wishing to be disagreeable, but I have a couple investment accounts that contain both taxable and non taxable income and they are in my current budget and show as taxable and non taxable income categories in the budget report. In those accounts, It is done buy setting up the security as taxable or not.

An IRA normally won't hold non-taxable securities. However, all income (dividends, interest etc) in an IRA is non taxable. If you are trying to check the overall investment income and tax status form ALL accounts, you need the IRA account to show it's contribution as non-taxable. As is possible in Windows (According to Quicken Help)

I am wanting to do is see the overall performance of all investments of all types versus my expenses. It provides a way to look at net worth and what is driving changes.

Jon

There's nothing you can do in Quicken Mac on an account level other than setting the account type to either a retirement account (such as IRA) or a taxable account.

jacobs

In Quicken Mac, There is no way to to designate an account as a taxable or non-taxable other than the definition of the Type of the account. The Type of the account determines whether the account has taxable or non-taxable income. Quicken knows to treat all income in IRA, 401k, and other retirement accounts as non-taxable income in tax reports. Additionally, you can designate select securities as tax-exempt, which is needed for holding in taxable accounts; for instance a tax-exempt bond fund held in a brokerage account.

An IRA normally won't hold non-taxable securities. However, all income (dividends, interest etc) in an IRA is non taxable. If you are trying to check the overall investment income and tax status form ALL accounts, you need the IRA account to show it's contribution as non-taxable.

We agree here on everything but your last statement. 😀 Taxable versus non-taxable investment income is handled in Quicken Mac tax reports. Investment performance is handled in Quicken Mac investment Portfolio screen. The budget has no knowledge of taxable versus non-taxable accounts. And what I was questioning is why you want to include investment income from retirement accounts in your budget, since other parts of the program are designed to give you the things you're wanting to see.

I am wanting to do is see the overall performance of all investments of all types versus my expenses. It provides a way to look at net worth and what is driving changes.

You're trying to use the budget for taxable income analysis, and it's just not build to do that. But you can find what you're looking for in other places. Performance of investments is best assessed in the Portfolio screen, since performance of investments depends on not just paid dividends and capital gains but unrecognized gains/losses. You can separate your retirement and non-retirement accounts there. A Net Worth report by month/quarter/year allows you to see the changes in account values over time.

John 411

I appreciate the feedback that addressed my question. My conclusion is that quicken for windows has a functionality that quicken for Mac users do not. It is unfortunate.

Note - I don't use quicken tax filing purposes. I have better tools for that. I use it to set an mange budgets and review DETAILS of transactions by appropriate categories for planning cash flows, and other strategies related to growing our net worth. It appears we all use this tool (Quicken) for different purposes. I wish windows and Mac versions had the SAME functionality.

jacobs

My conclusion is that quicken for windows has a functionality that quicken for Mac users do not.

Indeed, there are many. 😉