Ultra Tax Planner bug or feature?

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#1
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On Fed or State payments screen, multiyear 2017 and 2018 multi case situation, I've input the 2018 Q1 and Q2 payments already made. I expect UTP to compute required Q3 and Q4 to minimize est tax penalties.

But when I delete the blue system calculated dates and amounts for required estimated tax payments, the amounts for 2018 Q3 and Q4 automatically fill back in exactly the same as if I had never input the actual amounts paid in 2018 to date. The result is a large overpayment.

I have method set to "current year tax" and apply prior year overpayment.

Same thing for California payments.

Tech support got the same issue when they tried on their test client. Passing it to development. (UTP tech support is not the best)

Is this a bug or a strange feature?

I'm used to BNA which would calculate remaining payments needed for either 90% rule or 100%, but not create an overpayment unless I had already had client overpay. (Unlike UTP, BNA wouldn't even try to calculate required state estimated tax.)
 

#2
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TR UTPlanner response:
"I have heard back from Development regarding your question in Planner CS as to whether the later estimates will adjust when you manually input an amount for the earlier estimate payments already made.

As Planner CS is currently programmed, the calculated estimated tax payment amounts do not adjust to account for manually-entered payments entered for an earlier date. You will need to manually adjust the remaining payments. This is on our list of possible future program enhancements, to have the program adjust future payments automatically if you enter a different amount for an earlier payment. If you would like to put in a note for Development, please sign in to the CS Professional Suite Ideas Community https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/cs-profe ... mmunities/ to input the suggestion. "


Yes, when a projection is run for the current tax year after any estimated tax payments have been made for that tax year, the remaining unpaid required payments will be calculated as if the prior ones were what the tax projection had wanted, as long as those amounts have been entered into the program.

Any overpayments to be applied will need to be entered in the Payments Folder, Federal Payments Screen, and the Apply all of PriorYear Overpayments section. This is due to the fact that the program is unable to export any current year overpayments. Once the 2017 return has been completed for the client, their data can be imported from UltraTax into Planner CS. For more information, please see our help topic Importing Data from UltraTax/1040.

"
Yes, when a projection is run for the current tax year after any estimated tax payments have been made for that tax year, the remaining unpaid required payments will be calculated as if the prior ones were what the tax projection had wanted, as long as those amounts have been entered into the program.

Any overpayments to be applied will need to be entered in the Payments Folder, Federal Payments Screen, and the Apply all of PriorYear Overpayments section. This is due to the fact that the program is unable to export any current year overpayments. Once the 2017 return has been completed for the client, their data can be imported from UltraTax into Planner CS. For more information, please see our help topic Importing Data from UltraTax/1040. "
 

#3
makbo  
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I was thrown off by the duplicate cut and paste and the original question. "I've input the 2018 Q1 and Q2 payments already made. I expect UTP to compute required Q3 and Q4 to minimize est tax penalties."

I'm not sure I'm interpreting your question correctly, but here goes:

My short answer is, I use the Annualized Plan mode for dealing with uneven quarterly payments and trying to minimize Form 2210 amount. It's still not seamless, but with an Annualized Plan and some double checking in the main UT 1040 product, I can determine how much to pay now, and at each of the following due dates. Of course, the Ann. Plan requires a lot more work, since all income and deductions must also be annualized, not just estimated payments.

Now if you are talking about the much simpler concept of simply allocating total required payment across fewer than four remaining quarters, or applying an over-payment to take the place of part or all of the first one or more payments, that is done in the main tax program (UT 1040), not sure if Planner does it but it shouldn't be too hard. On the other hand, you can also just do it in the main program.

I think I've commented this before, but there are a few shortcomings in Planner that to me seem like they shouldn't exist in such an expensive product. Maybe this is one of them.
 

#4
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Since most of the ind returns for which I still have tax projections to do were not prepared in UT, after checking the input to UTPlanner, I'm relying on UTP.

All the 2018 projections I'm doing for next couple of months are straight non-annualized ones where guestimated amount was paid in as part of the April extension payment, and a 2018 Q2 guestimated made based on best avail info.

Now that I have actual 2017 results (or close to actual) I want to project 2018 in UTP to calc what client has to pay for Q3 and Q4 to minimize est tax penalties for 2018. BNA would have just calculated those amounts automatically.

But it seems like you you have to manually enter iterations of Q3 and Q4 to UTP to where the penalty and any resulting overpayment is minimized? (haven't tested that yet)
 


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