- quote -

Thanks! I've used TT for years and never knew about this worksheet. It's
difficult to find (for me anyhow). The only way I reached it was to use
Forms > Go to forms
and then click on the "Search" button and search for "What-if worksheet."

I'll give it a try.

--
<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:54:46 EDT, "nish" <nisha[at]nunya.org> wrote:

- quote -

You could try doing it with a spreadsheet, if you're competent at that
stuff. That's what I did. (Actually, mine is year-by-year, but same
idea.)

Mine has a little VBA, but just bell-and-whistle stuff IIRC. The most
complicated thing is lookup tables, for the tax rates and such. I'd say
it wasn't really hard - more, it took (me) a long time to evolve it, as
I discovered requirements and fixed problems.

G

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"DF2" <replyvia[at]newsgroup_please.com> wrote in message
news:q5e1g4tcdncne0417b8u6532297hjg8s73[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

That is exactly the point of tax planning, right? Tax planning software
lets you plan in advance of acting, and yes of course you need to do it well
before year end passes.

nish

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

On Oct 21, 10:54 am, "nish" <ni...[at]nunya.org> wrote:

- quote -

You mean the effect on the taxable portion of social security income?

I found the following

http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/

You can write a program that will create several different input files
and run each through the program. If you're really inclined to write
computer programs, you can modify the source code for own purposes.

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

In misc.taxes.moderated, nish wrote:

- quote -

Turbotax has a "What-if worksheet" with 4 columns.

There you can plug in number of dependents, filing status, income,
dividends, qualified dividends, student loan interest, and several
other things. I have never used it.

I suspect others have a similar thing. I also suspect that you would
not find it as useful as you imagine, unless you were doing it
before the end of the tax year to figure out the effect of some
action you have control over, such as marriage, or selling stocks.

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

On Oct 22, 5:00�am, "nish" <ni...[at]nunya.org> wrote:
- quote -

One software package that does a lot of what you are looking for is
Intuit's ProSeries. This software is targeted to professionals, so the
cost might be more than want to spend if you only have one return to
prepare. ProSeries does have a Pay-per-Return (PPR) option, but you
still have to pony up $100 or so to get the program discs.

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

"nish" <nisha[at]nunya.org> wrote in
- quote -







Drake offers the ability to do multi-year "what-if" scenarios. I've not
seen one that offers multi "what if" options on the same screen.

So, write one up and we'll read about in the Journal or Accountancy one day.






--
Paul A. Thomas, CPA
Watkinsville, Georgia

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

nisha[at]nunya.org (nish) posted:

- quote -

TaxWise offers a comparative, running analysis for MFJ vs MFS. However,
all of the other "what-ifs" you mentioned seem to be simply achieved by
preparing a basic return with the givens (social security, some pension
income, and relatively small amounts of interest income) and then adding
any specific: e.g., a specific amound of interest.

In the case of TaxWise, that would instantly display the net effect on
the tax due in the running total which routinely is available -- and if
you choose, the revised "Social Security Worksheet" could be printed
out.

But that should be true for virtually any sofware. I have no breadth of
experience myself, but it seems logical that you could plug variables
in, and then "unplug" them and substitute others, or combine them. For
the cost of a few sheets of paper and some toner (or ink), you would
then have the side-by-side results.

Bill

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

"Mark Bole" <makbo[at]pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:LQtLk.1371$8_3.1334[at]flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com...
- quote -

It's very cumbersome to do this way. It takes time to open up scenarios
and regain context.


- quote -

What I have seen some software do is to support a tabular entry where each
scenario is a different column, and you enter in the numbers side by side.

So it's easy to use for input because you literally see the different case
options side by side on the same row.

Really well done software could then even create reports that would
summarize critical differences in the tax outcomes for each scenario
analyzed.

nish

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

nish wrote:
- quote -

If you have both (or all three) tax scenarios clearly in mind, then just
work up one, copy the file, then alter it to get to the second, copy and
alter again to get to the third. Then you can compare side by side, on
screen, on paper, or however else you please.

The problem arises when you want some "what-if" capability, in other
words your scenarios are not yet completely locked in. How do you
correctly link every entry from Copy A to Copy B? Are the Copy B
entries static (don't change once you make the copy), do they vary by a
percent of the change you make to Copy A number, or do they always
differ by a fixed amount? Then of course you would have to make that
choice for virtually every input entry in Copy A that you want to
automatically adjust in Copy B.

If fully implemented, imagine how folks who actually *don't* have any
income choices might use it creatively to make it appear as if they do! ;-)

-Mark Bole

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I am looking for some tax preparation software that will let you compare
three scenarios side by side. This would be for extremely trivial
returns, typically older people with social security, some pension income,
and relatively small amounts of interest income. I am trying to answer
questions like: what is the effect on social security income if the person
receives an interest payment of $X in the current tax year.

I understand that Lacerte has a tax planning module, but that is probably
overkill for this application. I know Intuit and others have simple tax
preparation software, but it's not clear to me that any of them have a
capability to layout different income scenarios side by side, to help
highlight differences. It's that side by side comparison feature that I
really want here.

Seeing side by side comparisons is really useful when the tax payer has
income choices, like the ability to take or not take any amount of capital
gains in the current year. Being able to concurrently store all of the
facts for different scenarios and keep them stored separately - but still be
able to compare them side by side - is the main requirement here.

nish

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >