Entering Social Security Retirement Check

It would be a deposit. Care to ask something more specific?

db

It is income not just a deposit. In addition a portion is taxable and a portion is not.

I thought Quicken would have something built in for Social Security retirement income but all they have in the help section are adds for add-on products.

I guess I'll just split it into two parts.

"danbrown" wrote:

Here's how I handle mine:

Create an icome category; e.g., SocSec_Self, [or SocSec_Spouse]. Assign tax line item; 'Form 1040:Social Security Income, self'' [or spouse] Assuming you are taking advantage of the Medicare Part B coverage - create an expense category; e.g., Medical:Part B, self, and assign tax line item Schedule A:Medicare Part B Premium, self.

Create a scheduled transaction with splits. The first split item is the total monthly income The second split item is the deduction for Medicare Part B. The net is the deposit to your account.

There is no way within QW to determine the taxable/non-taxable portion in advance - that depends on other income such as taxable retirement account draws, pension payments, investment income including interest, dividends and cap gains/losses, etc. Your tax program [e.g., TTax] rolls all of this info together and makes the determination in the SocSec worksheet at year end.

QW's Tax Planner assumes SS income is 100% taxable by default - one reason I don't find the Tax Planner feature useful. I do use last years version of TTax to estimate this years taxes and this gives me an estimate of the taxable/non-taxable split for SocSec income. One can then use this info from TTax and make an adjustment in the Tax Planner if desired. I see no advantage to creating an extra split in the deposit transaction to try and identify the taxable/non-taxable portions.

"Stewart Berman" wrote .

Not informative.

All deposits will most likely be treated as "income" by Quicken; and whether Quicken treats them as taxable or not depends on how you treat the categories you assign the "deposit" to.

Your original question gave no indication of what problem you had with this kind of transaction.

Has occurred to me that if you are using or plan to use the tax reporting capabilities of QW and do plan to interface with TTax, one should not attempt to split the entry in QW between taxable and non-taxable. This would defeat, or at least complicate the tax handling in TTax [or other tax software].

==snipped=> QW's Tax Planner assumes SS income is 100% taxable by default - one

Same here. Using TTAX (or TaxCut) is the only way to get a reliable estimate of taxes. It not only does SS correctly but you can also adjust dividend income estimates: e.g. qualified vs non-qualified, dividends from Master Limited Partnerships not reported on DIV-1099 but reported on K-1, etc.

Hi, Stewart.

No one - not even the IRS - knows how much of your Social Security benefits will be taxable until you file your return after the year is ended.

For many retirees, SS is their only income, and not much of that. For them, probably none of the monthly check will be taxed. But others will have a lot of income - interest, dividends, even salaries - and for them, up to 85% of the SS check might be taxable.

But the range of possibilities are much more complicated than that. Many investors have no other income until near year-end, when a big windfall comes their way. Others have plenty of income - until they realize losses near the end of the year, perhaps as part of their tax-planning strategy. Even salary earners might have big income early, then get laid off, changing their full-year income picture dramatically. There is no way that SS or Quicken can take all these factors into account and predict how much of YOUR pension will be taxable for THIS year. And next year very well may be different. You might even get married - or divorced - before the end of the year and that would foul up all the calculations! :^}

In my case, I just enter my check as a split transaction: Social Security Income $1,000.00 Medical Insurance Expense:Medicare Part B -88.50 Checking Account $ 911.50

For now, all I need to know is that I have some income and some expense, with the difference increasing my bank balance. When I prepare my return, I'll let TurboTax figure out how much of the income is taxable, and how much of my Medicare premium is deductible, based on ALL the facts in my return, not just the Social Security checks I've received.

Which two parts did you have in mind?

RC

Whoops! I didn't notice the date on this old thread before I posted.

RC