Lacerte appears to not be correctly limiting the tax deduction to 20,000 reduced by the calculated limitation on a MFS return. Anyone else seeing this?

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
April 9, 2026
1 reply
12 views

The program is using 40K instead of 20K as its starting point to reduce the SCH a taxes deduction.

The limit is correctly calculated based on income in excess of 250K times 30% but subtracts the calculated limit from 40K, when it should be 20K

Lacerte Tax

J

Jojo94404

Level 3

Wait....where are you getting the $20,000 from? Is this for a taxpayer with filing status Married Filing Separately?

C

cwebb2237Author

Level 2

Thanks for your interest!

Yes, married filing separate (mfs), sorry for use of the acronym to describe the issue. The taxpayers live together, they are filing separately for non-tax reasons (student loan related)

taxpayer and spouse are both itemizing. They had over 40K in taxes paid. They made 576,000 on a joint return. I believe each person should get to deduct $11,400 due to the income limitation, ($20,000-8600). The software is starting with 40K and subtracts 8,600 to arrive at 31,400 and allows each taxpayer 15,700. Not correct in my understanding.

I believe Lacerte knows about this based on a customer support call that wasn't productive, nor gave any confidence as to correct treatment, but hasn't corrected or notified any of us of the issue.

J

Jojo94404

Level 3

Omg….lack of sleep is catching up with me, I guess! I read the “MFS” as you being frustrated but didn’t want to write the whole “bad word or phrase” here! I responded to your question because…,well…I could relate to that!!! 😂😂

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