IRA deposit on paychek

mardonna90265

I have my paycheck set up on Quicken for windows, and I am depositing and after tax deposit of $25 every pay period to my IRA, but when I do my I/E report its shows the full amount uder salary (which is fine and accurate) but under expenses it doesn't show the expense deduction to an IRA, making it look I have more disposable income then I actually do. How do I add this deduction to report, It is super frustrating

Tom Young

Remember, the report is an Income and Expense report, it's not a report on "disposable income" which is somewhat of a subjective term.

The full amount of salary is income and properly is shown, but the after-tax deposit into the IRA isn't an "expense" in the conventional notion of that term. It's a Transfer of some of your net (after tax) salary into another Account in your Quicken file. If shortly after you made your net check deposit into your checking Account you initiated a transfer of some of that money out of checking and into a savings Account, that wouldn't show up in the I&E report either, and for the same reason; it's not an expense, it's a Transfer of some of your money out of one pocket (checking) to another pocket (savings). The fact that the $25 transfer to the IRA is noted on your payroll check doesn't change its nature from a "transfer" to an "expense."

That said, Quicken is flexible enough - with some work on your part - so that you can show that $25 amount as a form of "expense" ( a line item labeled TO {IRA Account Name} ) but, technically, it's still not an expense as accountants use that term.