Tax Planner changes tax due amount or refund from day to day

Steve M

Windows 10 - Quicken Classic Premier R53.26 - 27.1.53.26 data entered manually

My issue is that the tax planner shows different amounts either due or to be refunded from day to day.

As an example, yesterday (12/21) after entering some mutual fund distributions the tax planner said an amount of $921 was owed. This morning (12/22) I started up Quicken and with no changes made, the amount due is now $740.

Meanwhile the Projected Tax window that I keep on the home screen says that the amount due is $279. Sometimes that amount will match the actual tax planner if I open the tax planner and hit "Next" through a few items and then close the planner.

The variations in the planner itself seem to have started around the time that programming work was done on the planner because the Projected Tax window on the home page in Quicken would show zeroes for every category.

markus1957

The Projected Tax window in the Planning tab still has an issue with not showing the correct capital gain in Deluxe & Premier versions. Use Report a Problem from the Help menu to log your report. That lets the developers know it is still an issue. As you say the Projected Tax window also does not refresh unless you edit values in the actual Tax Planner at which point it temporarily shows the correct capital gain and the taxed owed matches the planner value.

As for the tax owed changing daily, that sounds like one or more of your settings in the Details sections of the planner have the "Source for Projected Amount" set for "Estimate Based on YTD Daily Avg.". Change that to "No Projected Amount" or "Scheduled Bills and Deposits" and you should only see the tax owed change when an input value changes.

Steve M

Thank you for the suggestion. The only place I did not have "No Projected Amount" selected was in Dividends and Capital Gains. So changing that at least appears to give an actual amount that is to be owed - which is helpful now that year end distributions are happening.

I found that having a Projected Amount figured in the calculations was helpful earlier in the year while trying to determine withdrawals from inherited accounts to stay within a particular tax bracket.

markus1957

Also make sure to adjust the value in the Qualified Dividends box when you add dividend transactions to the account registers. That should be the dollar amount of dividends you expect to be shown as qualified dividends on your 1099s. If you do not enter a number in the QDI box, tax owed for all of the dividends entered will be calculated as regular income rather than the QDI amount being taxed at the QDI/LTCG rate for your income bracket.

Jim_Harman

Another Tax Planner note:

I have Reminders set up for my expected taxable dividend payments. Recently I have observed that when I set the correct amounts and accept the Reminders, the Tax Planner is updated but the Projected tax panel on the Planning > Tax Center page does not update until I exit and restart Quicken.