I have a form K-1 with "Line 17F - Other AMT Items", where should this data be input in Proconnect (online)? Many thanks!

[George4Tacks]

What flavor of K-1 do you have? I left my mind reading glasses at home today.

[PhoebeRoberts · Accepted solution]

If you're lucky, there's a detail schedule attached to the K-1 that tells you what it is. If you're not, it's from one of those partnerships that owns other partnerships, and it's been washed through so many returns that no one knows what it is. When I do get some detail, it's mostly ACE adjustments (not relevant to a 1040) or tentative excess IDCs (maybe relevant to a 1040, but not necessarily giving rise to an actual AMT adjustment, much less an AMT liability).

If your client isn't close to AMT, and doesn't have any credits that are limited by tentative minimum tax, and the Code F amount is relatively small, you can ignore it.

If it's potentially material to your client's return, ask the preparer if they have any additional information, because they are the only one who could know what lurks beneath that code.

[hsbyun]

It's a K-1 for a limited partnership investing in ... private equity oil & gas assets (so the fact pattern is that I see this 17F - Other AMT when I also see 17F - Excess IDCs).  So per the other comment on this chain, there is very likely some structural complexity underneath -- ie the partnership is investing in some pass through entity into energy with some tax characteristic.  

[hsbyun]

Unfortunately, this year's K-1 does not have any further descriptive information.

Thank you for the common sense approach -- you're right, overall AMT risk is low on this return, so yes, feels like it can be safely ignored. 

Appreciate the sanity check (I am the client here -- my preparer didn't want to deal with my forty K-1s anymore so I'm trying my hand at self-prep).

[PhoebeRoberts]

Um, best of luck with that? 🙂

I use Lacerte, which works very similarly to ProConnect, but with some additional abilities. For my guy with lots of hedge fund / alternative investment K-1s, it takes me an extremely complex Excel file and judicious overrides to get the tax return presentation right. Neither Lacerte nor ProConnect are designed for "blindly enter the number in the right box and a correct tax return pops out," and those K-1s tend to have footnote information that doesn't even have a "right box." 

I hope your prior preparer had the ability to give you good detailed basis schedules and carryforward schedules (or a ProConnect proforma file to start from).

[hsbyun]

Thanks!  Agree that doing prep work in excel has been essential to adequately line up the numbers to drop onto Proconnect's rails.  As you say, it's not exactly a plug and play product, and past few years have seen the K-1 codes sometimes change, causing some fun mismatches. 

Unfortunately that excel work requires some basic understanding of the underlying economic reality of what's happening inside the partnership.  It's ok in my specific case (I have the basic business understanding, and enough tax knowledge to get myself in trouble, but after a certain point Jesus takes the wheel) but I can imagine how a third party tax preparer seeing this for the first time would feel. 

[PhoebeRoberts]

Yeah, you need some experience with that sort of thing to know how to plan and price it. If you were paying less than $20k a year for the return, you were getting quite the bargain!