Thank you, but that won't work.  Taxpayers can deduct mortgage interest on up to $1MM of debt on their principal residences.  Taxpayers may no longer deduct the interest on equity debt on their federal returns, but they may on their CA returns.  I cannot find a place in Lacerte to input the interest on the equity debt so that it will be an addition to mortgage interest on the new Schedule CA of the 540

https://accountants-community.intuit.com/articles/1606564&src=lscosi
leads to https://accountants-community.intuit.com/articles/1609409
So, there needs to be those messy  entries down at the bottom of Screen 25.

Thank you, all.  I appreciate the help re:  making those messy entries on the bottom of Screen 25.  I've spent quite a bit of time making the entries down there, trying to convince the program to print the additional CA interest on the new Schedule CA in the addition column on the right.  No luck!  It's a bit of a weird situation.  Guy is MFS.  Loan is about $600,000 - his alone.  I simply cannot convince Lacerte to give me the extra interest on the CA, even though I check the box at the bottom of Screen 25 telling the program to use the $500/$550 limit.  It would be GREAT if the Lacerte programmers could just put in a State Only box to the right of the federal mortgage interest number, allowing us to just adjust the federal number.  They have done it with investment interest.  They should be able to do it for mortgage interest.  I can make the calculations myself.  I don't need all that nonsense at the bottom of Screen 25.  Thanks again, you guys!

I agree!  That method didn't work for me either.  Lacerte needs to add a "State if different" box to mortgage interest

Interesting...it was working for me 8 days ago.  Looks like something got *broke*; and I haven't played with it since.

Look at the much longer CA Schedule CA for all those wonderful adjustments. 

This may help https://accountants-community.intuit.com/articles/1606103-entering-home-mortgage-interest-and-other-... but it makes my head hurt.