"If Lacerte limited this field to only positive amounts, we would not be allowed to report the credit in the proper place on the return."

The possibility that a value would be negative or not is something that should be considered by the programmers, of course. That isn't the same as trying to get math to work, and that is why I used the word Value for an entry, such as a property tax credit exceeding the expense for that reporting year. So, barring some bad directive, the programmers should understand where to allow for a value to be negative or positive, when that applies.

"My point to the posting should probably have stated to please allow this flexibility throughout the software and not limit us to only entering positive amounts."

But that isn't what you put here in your topic. You put: "Does any one else have similar thoughts?" and that opened this discussion among your peer users.

Because no one here is limiting this. No one here is a Lacerte programmer or a tech support programmer or even an Intuit staffer.