Calculation error on deductible home mortgage interest worksheet

[DHipple]

After 2.25 hours on the phone with 3 different techs I still have a problem. Background, I have a client with a refinance loan that originated in 2019. The client paid off old loan and took out a new one for $75,000 more. In 2019 the calculation was flawless reporting only 68.369% of the loan as deductible. Push forward to 2020 and not the same loan on the worksheet has $62,000 remaining of the non-deductible home equity portion of the loan. Based on my manual calculations only 63.484% of the loan should be deductible but Proseries has the deductible portion at 100%. Did I miss something in the tax laws that are now allowing all mortgage interest to be deductible regardless of how it was spent, or is there an error on Part 1 Line 7 of the

[dascpa]

I learned to use my own Excel worksheet to calculate deductible home mortgage interest.  Multiple threads on this board reflect issues with this calculation in ProSeries.

[DHipple]

Agreed, but i would still like to know the software I use does not have built in errors. I think it is a cell pointing issue since they added a line to the worksheet in 2020 and now it picks up one line to high. of course, getting a not tax preparer to understand that isn't easy.

[victoria]

Well, thank goodness it isn't me going crazy.   I kept looking at the worksheet trying to understand why it wasn't disallowing the equity interest.   
I finally saw where the problem was, as its using the same amount for acquisition debt and average balance, but I can't even override the amount, and then get it to calculate.

They knew there was a problem with the worksheet, because yesterday it was showing as form not final.  When I updated today and the notice was gone, I figured they had fixed the issue.  Silly me!

[robertmazza]

I had the same trouble today.  The worksheet is flawed and does not calculate properly.  Hoping an update will correct this calculation error.

[Ned]

I've been having this same issue with the Mortgage Interest worksheet and think I have it figured out.  When entering the amount for "Interest paid in 2020" line, you'll notice that the "Months loan outstanding" automatically is entering "12" months".  The months loan outstanding is not allowing you to change it unless you override it.  If you have more than one loan it's important to have the correct amount of months each loan was outstanding to allow the "Average balance" for the year to calculate correctly.  What is happening all loans entering are calculating at 12 months which is causing the Average Balance to increase thereby disallowing some interest.  This is not correct.  I tried overriding the Months loan outstanding to the correct amount of months for each loan and unfortunately the program is always calculating as if all loans are outstanding for 12 months.  I have not been able to find a workaround other than not using the worksheet..

[John T in Oakland]

I am also finding that the worksheet does not handle the sale of a home and the purchase of a new home correctly.  

When I use loan 1 for the old home that was paid off and loan 2 for the new home loan the average balance for loans is not calculated correctly.

When I run a separate worksheet for the home that was sold and another worksheet for the new home loan then add together the deductible interest agrees with how I read the IRS Pub 936. 

Loan 1. $29,671 interest 5/16/2017 orig. date $1,140,000 beg. balance

Loan 2/ $9,329 interest 9/9/2020 orig. date $1,732,000 beg. and ending balance (interest only loan)

ProSeries calculates $17,304 deduction.  I calculate the deduction to be $30,067

[Vanilla_Duck]

Thanks to all for posting of your issues. Because I have the same issue - and it is April 27th. BOINNGGG.

I feel like Wylie Coyote going around and around and the Acme Anvil drops on me at every turn. Almost like you have to do your workaround in Excel (or on paper) and then but numbers in the "Deductible Home Mortgage Wks" to force your result.

I thought by this late in the filing season basic stuff like this would have been solved. Good luck to all!!

[kanchan-textax-u]

Can You Share the Same.

[Luk]

I just wonder why the Deductible Home Mortgages Interest Worksheet of ProSeries CANNOT handle the allocation calculation of Qualified Home Loan interest for the Mixed Mortgage refin  situations.  Ironically, Turbo Tax has that capability.   Do they have the same group of tax experts and programmers?    Why do we need to pay more for ProSeries?

[Frustrated-in-IL]

I spent a lot of time last year on the phone with ProSeries and finally gave up.  It worked perfectly in 2019 but didn't work at all in 2020 and as of last month (I don't waste my time checking anymore) didn't work for 2021.

What I found most frustrating is I had customer service signed into my computer and  was showing them both 2019, which worked, and 2020, which did not.  Of course, they didn't get it so they talked to someone else, refused to make a case because they insisted it worked, and I just gave up.  

Generally though, this is easy enough to work through (but the program should do it for you).