H&R Block Tax software

[F.I.R.E User]

I’ve used the free online version since 1999. Last year was not free so I used Credit Karma.

 

[ExPatKiwi]

It's not really an error and it's very unlikely that they are going to change this behavior, though of course you can ask.

Line 10 of form 8606 says "Divide line 5 by line 9. Enter the result as a decimal rounded to at least 3 places." 7000/7199 = 0.9723572718433115710515349354077 so .972 is the number you get when you round to 3 places.

The form does say "at least 3 places", so it's not incorrect to use 4 places, which is how many you need to get your calculation to round off to 7000 exactly, but it's also not required. TTax uses 5 digits, but it will cost you more to switch than the extra tax on the $3.

That’s worth knowing about TT for next year. The $3 doesn’t break the bank but it’s an interesting observation how rounding can change your tax liability.

 

[niven]

That’s worth knowing about TT for next year. The $3 doesn’t break the bank but it’s an interesting observation how rounding can change your tax liability.

I just try to ignore those types of issues. Rounding occurs in many places in the tax forms. Additionally, the tax tables for regular income are required to be used for less than $100,000 of income and it uses $25 increments for lower incomes and then $50 increments up to $100,000. Over that and you're supposed to use the worksheet. So even if all your previous calculations match, you could be off a few dollars in tax compared to calculating it. My tax planning spreadsheet comes close enough and I don't care to add code for the "unique" way the tax tables work.

What's the saying - close enough for government work?