If you are a tax professional, do not use ProSeries!
ProSeries Tax Software is not designed for the professional accountant. I will never use it again.
It is 5:00 A.M. in the morning, and I have been attempting for hours to complete Form 1041 for a trust; however, ProSeries does not allow entry into a K-1 worksheet for a publicly traded partnership when preparing a trust tax return. One must manually enter all the individual items reported on a K-1 for a publicly traded partnership on the normal forms and schedules following the special requirements for treatment of publicly traded partnerships. Consequently, a two minute entry is transformed into a very time consuming and laborious task.
In order to do so, however, one cannot then electronically file the tax return since Schedule E, page 2, rejects any direct entry for electronic filing. Therefore, one needs to fill out and include Form 8948 with its filing.
But if one has any items from Section 1256 contracts and saddles to report from a publicly traded partnership's K-1--as is not uncommon with PTPs--one cannot enter them directly into ProSeries. Why? Would you believe that ProSeries does not even include Form 6781 in its trust software allowing one to manually enter that information?!?
I spent an hour looking for that form in ProSeries only to discover that its trust tax software does not even include that tax form. I had to extract that form from the IRS website, undertake the calculations and fill it in manually, and carry that information over to the appropriate schedules and forms in ProSeries. Why did I bother paying $63.81 to Intuit to prepare this particular trust's tax return?
Well, what can one expect from tax software owned and supported by Intuit anyway.
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The Barefoot Accountant—is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, operating an accounting, tax, and QuickBooks consulting firm in Berlin, Connecticut, Accountants CPA Hartford, Connecticut, LLC. Bill has instructed graduate and undergraduate courses in Accounting, Auditing, and other subjects at the University of Hartford, Central Connecticut State University, Hartford State Technical College, and Purdue University. He also taught GMAT and CPA Exam Review Classes at the Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center and at Person-Wolinsky, and is certified to teach trade-related subjects at Connecticut Vocational Technical Schools. His articles on tax and accounting have been published in several professional journals as well as on several accounting websites. William was born and raised in New Britain, Connecticut, and served on the City's Board of Finance and Taxation as well as its City Plan Commission. Bill is a crazed animal lover, feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, possums, stray cats, and any two-legged or four-legged critter traversing through his yard. His backyard in Berlin, Connecticut has been certified as a habitat suitable for wildlife by the National Wildlife Federation.
Bill also writes an Accounting, QuickBooks, and Tax blog: Accounting, QuickBooks, and Taxes by the Barefoot Accountant. For entertaining articles, please see his listing at The Amazing Brighenti.
