Phil would have been mortified that someone with a direct MF association would be so crass and arrogant about tax matters.
I’m not sure why you consider me to be crass and arrogant. I asked a question in the OP, no one really answered the specific question (still hasn’t), the thread devolved into a discussion of tax fraud, eventually I admitted I may not know what I’m talking about and would ask for professional advice.
Also, I’m not sure why you would expect a Motley Fool contractor to be a tax expert. If I were, I would not have needed to ask my original question.
I think you got the answer in the very first response to your post.
“You must be doing something wrong (in TT).”
Maybe you skipped a question that resulted in it coming to the wrong conclusion.
Or maybe you answered a question differently than you should have because the question wasn’t worded in a manner that was clear to you.
I’d switch to the forms interface, open up the “IRA Contrib wks” and see what’s on there.
Possibly that will clear things up for you.
Or maybe there are some forms that have errors and when you fill them in it’ll resolve your problem.
I’m not sure why you consider me to be crass and arrogant.
I dunno. Maybe its multiple responses saying what you are proposing is wrong. Then ignoring them.
Or maybe it’s dismissing the answer you got in the first response without considering that your problem might be from your own mistake, and instead blaming Turbo Tax for making errors.
Then again, maybe multiple posters here are just ignorant snowflakes who don’t know what they’re talking about because you are so much smarter than they are.
Beats me why someone might think you’re crass and arrogant.
Also, I’m not sure why you would expect a Motley Fool contractor to be a tax expert.
Where did you see that happen? I sure didn’t see it.
eventually I admitted I may not know what I’m talking about and would ask for professional advice.
Smart people don’t “eventually” admit they don’t know what they’re talking about. They know up front when they don’t know. That’s kind of why you ask for help.
As to seeking professional advice, you already have received advice from more than one professional. Do you think you’re going to get a different answer if you keep asking?
Lastly, there’s a bit of an expectation that when you haul around an official TMF or CMF moniker on these boards, you will hold yourself to a bit higher standard than us rank and file posters. It’s kind of like when you go into a store, you expect the employees to act a bit more courteously than the shoppers. Yes, it’s a double standard. But that’s what you get when you are getting paid for being here.
Me: eventually I admitted I may not know what I’m talking about and would ask for professional advice.
You: Smart people don’t “eventually” admit they don’t know what they’re talking about. They know up front when they don’t know. That’s kind of why you ask for help.
This was referring to the fraud sub-discussion, not my original question. And “you must have made a mistake” is not an answer to the original question, without further explanation. And further, TT itself is telling me that my contribution is disallowed because of the very subject of the question, i.e. is Schedule C income treated differently than W-2 income (which is what TT is telling me in plain English). So it’s either a bug and TT is wrong, or my original question still stands. I have been unable to find anything in the IRS tax documents that supports TT’s contention.
And yes, I will rely on a paid professional’s opinion on the fraud question over the opinions in this board. I was asking the board only about the original question. I’m very sorry to have bothered you all.
However, TurboTax tells me that my spouse over-contributed by the entire amount of the contribution, apparently because my apparently Schedule C income belongs to me and not my spouse, and can’t be combined like W-2 income can be for contribution limit purposes?? Is this true, and how does it make sense?
I could not reproduce this “error”, and think it might be related to some answer you made or need to make to TT.
I entered $16k into Turbo Tax Schedule C with two $6k Roth Ira contributions for a married couple. When I answered the TT IRA question, I got a scary response that the IRA contribution was not allowed and that there would be a penalty. But after running the Smart Check and correcting all of the errors, the penalty disappeared. There might be some special circumstance (e.g. living outside US) that disallows the contribution.
Bottom line is don’t panic, complete the entire return and run Smart Check, and then review.
In TurboTax, the “Roth IRA Contribution Limit Worksheet” shows you the calculation. You might need to get TT to fill in Line 7 earned income, by completing Schedule C or some other step in the process.
Congratulations. Your utter lack of self-awareness has made you, I believe, only the second TMF/CMF poster to make it to my ignored fools list. I won’t make the mistake of responding to you again.
TT itself is telling me that my contribution is disallowed because of the very subject of the question, i.e. is Schedule C income treated differently than W-2 income (which is what TT is telling me in plain English).
Earned income is treated differently than unearned income. My WAG is that W-2 is always Earned Income, while Schedule C is sometimes Earned and sometimes Unearned.