Interest

Program Considerations

• You can enter interest income information through the grid or the expanded input.
• The expanded input of the Interest Income screen is designed to facilitate data entry from a standard Form 1099-INT.
• Use 1=taxpayer, 2=spouse to indicate the dividend item relates to either the spouse or the taxpayer. If you leave this field blank, the program assumes the interest was paid to the taxpayer and spouse jointly.
• The program calculates and prints Schedule B if:
  • The taxpayer or spouse has over $1,500 of interest and/or dividend income.
  • The Interest in or authority over foreign account box is checked.
  • The Grantor/transferor or distribution from foreign trust box is checked.
  • Any entries are made in the Adjustments section.
  • Interest is excluded from Series EE Bonds Issued After 1989.
  • The Schedule B tax return option is set to Force.
    Schedule B can be forced to print in the Options and on a per client basis in the General Information section of Screen 11, Interest Income. For additional information on setting Options refer to the Tax Return exercise in the Before You Prepare a Return section (Program Operations tutorial).
• When the number of interest income items exceeds the number of lines on the Schedule B, the program prints "See Statement" on Schedule B, line 1 and prints a supporting statement listing all interest income entries.
• When entries are made in the Adjustments section of the Interest Income Screen, the program calculates and prints a subtotal for line 1 and subtracts the adjustments items from the subtotal to arrive at total interest income on line 2.
• The program provides an option to print an optional statement for the tax-exempt amounts on line 8b of Form 1040 either as a worksheet or as a statement. For additional information on setting this option refer to the Tax Return exercise in the Before You Prepare a Return section (Program Operations tutorial).

How?

To enter interest income:

1. Open the sample client.
2. Open the Interest Income screen from the Contents tab.
   
3. Enter the information from the Interest table above in the appropriate input fields.

To view a different interest item:

1. Select the interest item in the 1099-INT list.
   

To add a new interest item:

1. Click Add at the bottom of the 1099-INT list.
   

To delete an interest item:

1. Highlight the appropriate item.
2. Click Delete at the bottom of the 1099-INT list.
   

Tips & Shortcuts

You can press [Ctrl]+[A] to add another interest item.

Review

You should have entered the interest items for the sample return and produced the following results on Form 1040:

Troubleshooting

Problem: I am not generating a statement for line 8b of Form 1040.

Solution: Set the option for the Schedule B Optional statement to With the tax return or use the override in General Information.

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