TAXABLE SOCIAL SECURITY DID NOT CALCULATE

You're paying the tax for them, that they owed anyway?  Quite generous.  No one else does that. 

On January 26, never trust the software.  By February 26, maybe.  

@Karl I won't criticize all that effort, but I admit to using the eyeball method on Social Security.  It helps that I actually print out returns, but it works just looking at it on the screen too.  (Or does Lacerte give you a look at the form itself?  I always think of Pete Seeger and the song "Little Boxes, Little Boxes," when someone mentions Lacerte.)  If the taxable SS looks like 85%, don't worry.  If it's zero with AGI of 50K, then something is wrong.  Often it is a "sliding scale" percentage, and I might actually look at the worksheet.  And I rely more and more on the "Two Year Comparison," because the numbers don't change much year to year for most of my clients.  

Respectfully, while you should be able to trust the software, it is our responsibility as paid preparers to review and check the end returns for accuracy.

My SOP is to populate all the forms in an Excel file first and then separately populate Lacerte so I can cross-check all the income and deduction totals to catch typos, software glitches, overrides, etc. For SS, I enter the SSA-1099 totals, and then have a separate input for the taxable % so I can cross-check the amount that should be taxable, and I have conditional formatting to change the cell color if I haven't put in a percentage so that it REALLY calls it out for me.