Partner's ending capital account percentage in excess of 100% - LUMPY
With Lacerte set to automatically calculate partner's ending capital account percentages, instances in which negative ending capital occurs may cause certain partner's ending capital percentage to exceed 100%. This is CLEARLY non-compliant with the instructions provided by the IRS for Forms 1065 (specifically Schedules K-1).
Lacerte presently and for many years has not provided a diagnostic to alert the preparer that partner's ending capital accounts as calculated under the automatic setting are exceeding 100% in one or more instances and to advise the preparer to switch to the manual method. Such a diagnostic would be a really good idea.
An even better improvement would be to offer information in the knowledge base available to all users that such an instance may occur and Lacerte's recommendation in such an instance.
An even even better better idea under the automatic setting, especially in the case of partnerships with a large number of partners, would be to modify the code to exclude those partner's with negative ending capital from the calculation of the ending partner's capital account percentages as such accounts should present as a 0% in accordance with the instructions provided by the IRS.
