2001 Macintosh Workarounds and Other Problems

Printing Mac Returns on HP printers

Users Affected: You are affected by this problem if you are using a Hewlett Packard (HP) printer.

Problem: You are unable to print using a Hewlett Packard printer.

Solution: The update corrects this problem. To update TaxCut, follow these steps:

• From the Tools menu in TaxCut, select Update TaxCut to download and install the Macintosh update.
• Open TaxCut and print your return.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

Auto Entry: Complete List of 1099 and 1098 Partners Does Not Always Display
Users Affected: You are affected by this problem only if you are using TaxCut's Auto Entry feature to download your 1099 investment data from participating financial institutions or 1098 mortgage interest data from participating mortgage lenders.

Problem: The Auto Entry wizard for importing 1099 and 1098 data does not always display the complete list of participating financial institutions or mortgage lenders.

For importing 1099 data, the following four participating financial institutions should display:

• Alliance Capital
• Fidelity Investments
• Gainskeeper
• H&R Block Financial Advisors

Solution: To fix this problem, complete the following steps:

1. In the Auto Entry wizard, click Cancel.
2. Go to the File menu, and click Save.
3. Go to the File menu, and click Exit.
4. Restart TaxCut.
5. Click the Final Error Check button and immediately close the Error Check window without clearing any errors.
6. Click the Take Me To... button and select either "Importing 1099s" (under "Income") or "Home Mortgage Interest" (under "Deductions") depending on where the problem occurred.
7. Start the wizard and the complete list of participating partners (as shown above) should display.

1. Repeat steps 1-7 above.
2. Restart the computer and again repeat steps 4-7 above.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

1099-R Worksheet with Distribution code "P" or "D"
Users Affected: You are affected by this problem if you (and/or your spouse, if married filing jointly) received a 2001 Form 1099-R with distribution code "P" or "D" in box 7.

Note: Code P covers certain distributions that are taxable in 2000 and code D covers certain distributions that are taxable in 1999.

Problem: The taxable amount from Form 1099-R, box 2a may be included incorrectly on the wages line of your return (Form 1040, line 7; Form 1040A, line 7; or Form 1040EZ, line 1).

Solution: If the wages line of your return incorrectly includes the taxable amount from box 2a of Form 1099-R, follow the steps listed below to correct the problem:

1. On the Forms menu in TaxCut, select Open Forms.
2. Select the Non-W2 Wages Worksheet.
3. On line 8 of the Worksheet, select the column for "You" or "Spouse" (as appropriate).
4. Subtract the amount shown in box 2a of the corresponding Form 1099-R from the amount shown on line 8 of the Non-W2 Wages Worksheet.
5. On line 8 of the Non-W2 Wages Worksheet, override the amount with the difference.
   Note: This will not prevent you from e-filing.
6. Click Close Form and click Close Window to close Forms Central.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

Taxpayers Who Were Directly Affected by the September 11 Terrorist Attacks and Owe an Underpayment Penalty.
Users Affected: You are affected by this problem if you meet all of these conditions:

• You owe a penalty for underpaying your estimated tax;
• You calculated your penalty using the Regular Method described in Form 2210, Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals, Estates, and Trusts, and you did not use the Short Method;
• You checked the box at the top of TaxCut's Form 2210 indicating that you were directly affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Note: Taxpayers who were directly affected by the attacks are described in the IRS instructions to Form 2210 and include victims, relief workers, taxpayers whose principal residence or place of employment is in one of the covered disaster areas, and taxpayers whose records were maintained in a covered disaster area;
• You had Federal income tax withheld or excess social security or railroad retirement tax ("withheld tax"); and
• You did not check box 1c at the top of Form 2210 electing to have your withheld tax treated as paid on the dates it was actually withheld.

Problem: For purposes of calculating the penalty in Section B of Part IV of Form 2210, TaxCut treats your withheld tax as being paid 25% on April 15, 2001, 25% on June 15, 2001, and 50% on January 15, 2002. TaxCut should treat your withheld tax as being paid 25% on April 15, 2001, 25% on June 15, 2001, 25% on September 24, 2001, and 25% on January 15, 2002. TaxCut's approach can result in an underpayment penalty that is too high.
Solution: If you do not need to file Form 2210, follow one of these steps:

• Wait for the IRS to determine the penalty for you. The IRS strongly encourages this. To have the IRS determine the penalty, go to line 71 of Form 1040 (line 46 of Form 1040A) and override the amount shown there so that the line is blank. File your return by April 15, 2002, to avoid interest on the penalty.


-OR-


• Recalculate your underpayment penalty following the IRS instructions to Form 2210. Enter the correct amount of the underpayment penalty on line 71 of Form 1040 (line 46 of Form 1040A).

To improve the sound quality of the videos, you should be using QuickTime 3.0 or higher. If your computer is running the Mac OS 8.6 or higher, you are running Quicktime 3.0 or higher. If you are not, you can download the latest version of QuickTime from the Apple Web site at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download. There is no additional charge.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

Files from other programs, such as Quicken, can be large. Therefore, it is recommended that you import these files before you begin any other work. Also, close any other applications in order to save memory.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

IIf you are having problems with TaxCut's imports or reports, or if TaxCut is freezing up or running out of memory, you will need to increase TaxCut's Preferred Memory setting. To increase the memory setting, do the following:

1. Close TaxCut 2001 if it is open.
2. Select TaxCut 2001.
3. Select the File menu, select Get Info, and click Memory.
4. Preferred Size is set to 16384 (16MB). Increase the memory setting.

Note: Every Macintosh program has its own memory budget. Even if the system has free memory, an application is still limited to its own preferred memory request. The Memory control panel controls total memory for all programs. Unless you have very little physical memory, this is usually set to the lowest value. It should, however, be greater than the sum of the system memory utilization and TaxCut's preferred memory.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

If you are unable to view Help Central after clicking the Help button in a dialog box, move or resize the dialog box. Help Central will display the help topic under the dialog box.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

The Copy command (Command-C) does not work on Mac OS X. If you need to copy data from one field to another, use Cut (Command-X) and immediately after, use Paste (Command-V) in the original field from which it was cut, and then go to another field and paste the value again.

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top

Updating IRS Publications
Users Affected: You are affected by this problem only if you are a Deluxe version user attempting to review a 2001 IRS publication.

Problem: Not all IRS publications were finalized at the time we released this update.

Solution: You need to update your IRS publications from the Tools menu, then select Update Publications. This will give you the most recent versions of publications.
However, the following publications were not finalized at the time we released this update:

• Publication 551, Basis of Assets
• Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records

Return to list of Workarounds and Other Problems

top