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Right category / tax line item for pre-tax deductions?

Ted P

For a number of years now I've been mystified by why my Quicken tax reports never reconcile even vaguely with my W2s. I'm diligent about classifying all the lines in my paycheck but the basic 'salary' amount is still ~20% off at year end. Finally i've understood that it has to do with assigning the right tax line item to various accounts (for transfers) and categories (for line items); and then I finally figured out where the Account tax settings are (for transfers). But now I'm mystified by what I should put as the 'Tax line item' for a number of things.

Is there a good list somewhere?

If not does anyone know what tax line item I should be using? Here's the big ones (all pre-tax):

Insurance premiums (medical, dental, vision) - no idea

401k - I put this as 'Form 1040:IRA contribution, self'

Flex Spending Dependent - I put this as 'W-2:Dependent care benefits, self'

Flex Spending Health - No idea

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Rocket J Squirrel

@Ted P

Is there a good list somewhere?

Not that I know of. Tax Line Items have not been documented, or even maintained, for many years.

Insurance premiums (medical, dental, vision) - no idea

I use Schedule A:Doctors, dentists, hospitals. This is obviously wrong but will at least get these premiums into the medical deduction area.

Sorry, I can't help with the others.

Rocket J Squirrel

If you're feeling brave, you can look at the source lists of the TLIs. They are found in
C:\ProgramData\Quicken\Inet\Common\Localweb\Tax

The 2 files are TAX.SCD (list) and TAX.THP (descriptions). You will have to correlate the hidden TLI numbers to get the correspondence between the 2 files.

Ted P

Yikes not sure if I'm that brave but thank you!

Annoying that the tax line items aren't maintained. The yearly subscription fees are annoying if they're not actually keeping the product minimally current!

Mostly I'm trying to get my pre-tax deductions correctly backed out of my salary on the tax report. I don't putting it on the schedule A:doctors line would do that? I'll try it though.

Rocket J Squirrel

Mostly I'm trying to get my pre-tax deductions correctly backed out of my salary on the tax report.

Then maybe just use negative numbers with the same Category as your salary in the paycheck transaction.

Sorry, I'm an old retired guy and don't recall how I used to treat these things back in my working days. Perhaps an employed forum member will chime in.

Q97

I have a Salary category with tax line W-2:Salary or wages, self. I also have an Insurance:Dental (etc) category with the same tax line. In my paycheck, the Insurance:Dental (etc) amount is negative, as @Rocket J Squirrel suggested above.

For the 401(k) contribution, you should have a separate Quicken account configured as a 401(k). You can leave its Tax Schedule Transfers In blank. Your paycheck entry is then a transfer to this account. Quicken should handle that as pretax automatically.

For the Flex contributions, these should be transfers to separate accounts that are set as Tax Deferred with Tax Schedule Transfers In set to W-2:Salary or wages, self.

Ted P

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20415390#Comment_20415390

thanks - I'll check this out.

I thought I had to have the transfer account (401k, flex spending) set to a different tax line in order to get the amounts to be deducted from my total salary. It sounds like that's not right - it sounds like if I set Flex (for example) to have the tax line W-2:Salary, it would be removed from the Salary total when I look at my tax summary? If so i'll play around with that.

Also why do you suggest having the 401k tax line blank, but the flex account tax line W-2:Salary?

Q97

"Also why do you suggest having the 401k tax line blank, but the flex account tax line W-2:Salary?"

Short answer is because that's what has worked for me. I'm guessing that either the paycheck pre-tax deduction to the 401(k) or some special handling of that account type makes the taxes come out right.