Using the What-If Worksheet in ProSeries

The What-if Worksheet lets you use the current year tax return data to run comparisons for up to three additional scenarios. The scenarios input in the What-If Worksheet don't flow back to the current year's tax return. If you're comparing Married Filing Jointly with Married Filing Separately in ProSeries Professional, see Using the MFJ vs MFS Comparison Worksheet in ProSeries Professional for the automated worksheet.

Opening the What-If Worksheet:

1. Open the tax return.
2. Press F6 to bring up Open Forms.
3. Type Wha and press Enter to open the What-If Worksheet.

Using the columns:

Column 1 brings the values from the current year tax return, as long as you are using the Forms, Schedules, and Worksheets provided. Direct entries on the 1040 will often not flow to the What-If Worksheet and other planning worksheets.

• You can either start a new column from scratch, or use the Copy columns section to bring over the current year data as the base of your planning scenario.
• Use Add columns if you want to combine two different scenarios, such as Married Filing Seperate, to see the combined output.
• Use Subtract column if you want to subtract column 3 values from column 2 to see the differences in column 4.
• Use Clear amounts in column if you wish to start over on a planning scenario.
• Each column has a text field at the top that lets you enter a brief description of the purpose of the column. This is below the current tax year field.
• If you want to run a comparison for next year's taxes, check the Check box to use 2024 tax rates.

Press F1 to open the Tax Help for the What-If Worksheet for additional information.

Generating a Married Filing Joint vs. Married Filing Separate comparison in ProSeries Basic

1. Open the tax return.
2. Press F6 to bring up Open Forms.
3. Type Wha and press Enter to open the What-If Worksheet.
4. Use Column 1 for the original Married Filing Jointly return
5. Using Column 2  to manually enter the taxpayer's information
6. Using Column 3  to manually enter the spouse's information
7. Review the calculated amounts to see if filing MFS has any tax benefits to the client.