Preparing Partnership, S-Corporate and Corporate multi-state returns in Lacerte

The Lacerte Tax program can automatically total the items pertaining to the different apportionment factors for the states in the return.

While apportionment factors vary among states, the program calculates the following items for the apportionment factors from the corresponding input areas:

• Property Factor - Category for depreciable assets, Balance Sheet totals, and Deductions
• Payroll Factor - Deductions
• Sales Factor - Income

If you use Automatic Apportionment, you must assign state identifiers to input items in the Detail screens.

To select Automatic Apportionment globally:

1. From the Settings menu, select Options.
2. Select the Tax Return tab.
3. Scroll down to the Multi-State Options section.
4. Select Yes from the Automatic Apportionment option.

Note: You can override the Automatic Apportionment option in the state apportionment screen for each return. This screen may also be used to override specific state apportionment information including percentages.

Apportionment Factors

When filing a business multi-state return, you must enter state identifiers to calculate the Within State columns for apportionment items. State identifiers are the U.S. Postal abbreviations for states.

For example, the program treats all amounts entered with the state identifier of CA as source income for California. You also can use US to source income to a state that has no income tax or to source income to a state for which a return is not being prepared. The program uses only entries with state identifiers to calculate the state's source income for each apportionment factor.

The Corporate, Partnership, and S corporate tax programs allow state identifiers for items that apply to the apportionment factors only.