1) After I sync my clients from within Lacerte, then go to the ITA main tab and say Create a New Plan, the Select a client dropdown list includes clients I haven't done a return for in 10+ years. I think this is maybe an artifact having uploaded clients to ITO in the long past? (I pretty much guarantee that’s the issue, because I get a duplicate listing on the drop-down for every client I sync to ITA. Any idea on how to purge that really old stuff? For people who use PTO, they see all their clients forever on that list?)
1a) Select a Client drop-down is alphabetical by first name. What’s up with that?
1b) Select a Client drop-down doesn’t include spouse names. What’s up with that?
1c) Existing 1040 return with federal e-file status says “[Name] – 2021 – Not e-filed]” both for returns that have and haven’t been e-filed.
2) Residential Energy Credit typo:
3) The strategies are really lacking in nuance, and will cheerfully let me say "I'm going to establish both a solo 401(k) and a SEP for the SE income I get off 1065 K-1s, and let me double-dip with my over-50 catch-up contribution to the 401(k) I already have from the employer that's part of a controlled group with those partnerships." As an experienced tax planner, this is the point that I roll my eyes, close the tab, and never look at this product again, because it's going to be a bunch of tedious fiddling with a very slow website for minimal payoff. An inexperienced tax planner can dig a very deep hole, very quickly, with no warning signs. Based on the kinds of questions that get asked here on the Community, I think a lot of people who would buy this are going to find themselves in deep holes.
3a) There need to be flags for each activity for things like "this is part of a controlled group," and "I'm not eligible to get pre-tax fringe benefits from this entity," and "I am not a decision-maker with respect to this entity's benefit policies." Having determined that the suggestions and calculations are much less sophisticated than I'd hoped, I don't think this would be helpful.
4) What other people have said about recalculation time. An "add all strategies" button would be helpful, since they seem easy enough to toggle on and off after they've been added.
5) The order of the "New 2022 strategies" appears to be random, and it re-sorts when you change dollar amounts. Combine that with no "shrink to fit" option, and it's really hard to keep track of things.
6) "Net out of pocket" doesn't distinguish between "money that goes into another of my pockets" and "money that goes into someone else's pocket." If I pay $100k for a really nice gas water heater (Hey, the card says unlimited amounts! And "things to verify" says gas water heaters count! Why would I ever expect the nuanced information contained here, for example: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/home-ownership/energy-tax-credit-which-home-improvements-qualif...), and get a $26,000 credit, I'm truly $74k poorer. If I put $67,500 into my Solo 401(k), and get a $28,350 tax savings, I am truly $28,350 richer.
7) PTP limitations aren’t being applied?
😎 Passive loss limitations aren’t being applied?
9) Royalty income doesn’t get line-itemed out?
10) Investment income details (interest, interest from K-1, etc) looks like it should be broken out, but they aren’t?
11) “Line 21” income isn’t picked up from tax return? So if the tax return in Lacerte shows $200, and I put $100 in the 2022 baseline field, my AGI in ITA is increased by $100, rather than decreased by $100. (for items that aren’t being picked up automatically, the 2022 column is an [A] field, rather than an [O] field?
12) Written tax plan for client: some of the “how to get started” appears to be directed to the client (which I’d expect, because this is the client report), but some of it says things like “Remind taxpayer of important due dates,” which is not useful to have in the client copy of the report.
13) No ability to modify the client report? Can’t even pick the order, so that similar items are grouped together?
14) W-2s marked as “1=delete this year” show up on the pre-strategy baseline tab and can’t be deleted.
15) Content settings for the tax plan aren't currently available?
16) Taxpayer and Spouse ages are as of the prior year's return, not the planning year.
I've run plans for my most complicated client, and for my least complicated client so far.
