- quote -

I think that would work, but it's not what I would have
done. It probably doesn't matter now, if you were trying to
meet the Oct. 15 deadline, but here's my opinion just for
the record.

I would suggest that you completely finish the federal
return before you do anything at all with the state. There
is no benefit to trying to emulate the transfer process. You
don't need any 2002 information to be entered before you
start working on your 2003 state return. If you finish the
federal return first, then you go through the state
interview only once.

Also note that most of what gets transferred from the
previous year is not dollar amounts. It's text such as
names, addresses, social security numbers, etc., and things
like what boxes you checked on certain forms. The main
benefit is that it saves you a lot of retyping. TurboTax
assumes that most dollar amounts will change from one year
to the next, so there is no point in transferring them. The
only exception would be where the actual 2002 amount might
affect your 2003 return, such as the amount of the refund on
your 2002 state tax return.

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

- quote -

Thanks again, Bob, this is VERY helpful. I should be able to
conquer it from here. Actually, it would seem that in that
there is a relatively (in comparison to the Federal return)
limited quantity of data. Thus the interview approach would
be more amenable.

So.... the sequence, in this case could be:
1. fill in the interview question amounts on the state tax
interview - which has NOT been transferred from the previous
year. (in this case 2002 TC not transferred to 2003 TT

2. Do the regular TT 2003 return with the 2002 amounts which
HAVE been transferred from TC of 2002.

3. GO TO the State version of TT 2003, AFTER having done the
work in TT 2003, and let TT 2003 transfer that info into TT
2003 STATE.

4. Check the info from there

Seem like the best sequence/approach ?

JBJ

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

- quote -

I noticed that the following were omitted when transferring
from TaxCut 2002 to TurboTax 2003.
- Bank account information for direct deposit of refund
- Third-party designee
- State tax refund from prior year
- Form 2106 (Employee Business Expense)
- Historical data for prior-years comparison
This is certainly not a complete list. You may have things
in your 2002 return that I did not have in any of the ones I
transferred.

- quote -

If you use the TurboTax interview (instead of entering data
directly into the forms) it will ask you to enter any data
it needs from last year that was not transferred. I suggest
that you just go through the interview, and don't spend any
time trying to analyze the details of what did or did not
get transferred.

Bob Sandler

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

- quote -

State and federal returns are all in one file in TaxCut
2002. TurboTax 2003 apparently does not transfer the state
data from the TaxCut 2002 file. (I tested with NY and NJ.
It's likely that the same would be true for CA.) It's not
that it's looking for a separate state file. TurboTax just
isn't programmed to transfer state data from TaxCut. Note
that TurboTax, both 2002 and 2003, also puts the federal and
state returns in one file.

TaxCut did not make TurboTax unable to find the state data.
TurboTax just was not programmed to transfer state data from
TaxCut. In fact, TurboTax does not even do a complete
transfer of all the federal data from TaxCut. Apparently a
thorough transfer from TaxCut is not a priority for the
developers of TurboTax. It just transfers the essentials.
These limitations were design decisions in TurboTax 2003,
not defects in TaxCut 2002.

Bob Sandler

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

"J. Bernie J." <-.no.spam.--.jbb4545[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

You might do better posting the question at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hrbTaxCut/

I`t's a Yahoo Group that discusses H&R Block (formerly Kiplinger)
TaxCut income tax preparation software.

BC

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

When importing (or transferring) the 2002 TaxCut data into
TurboTax 2003, TurboTax 2003 indicates that it does not see
a file containing the 2002 TaxCut California State data.

In my files, from last years 2002 TaxCut, (which I found
temporarily necessary to use, for the one year of 2002,
after years of TurboTax, due to the 2002 TurboTax security
concerns) -

I do find only ONE 2002 TaxCut file.

Did 2002 TaxCut COMBINE the State and the Federal returns
into ONE file and make TurboTax 2003 unable to FIND or READ
the state info ?

Thanks for your responses, in advance..

J B J

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->