Filing 1040EZ vs 1040A or 1040

[Edward]

Client filed 2010 1040EZ - 30 years old; single, one exemption, qualifies for EIC with wages of 7352 and FITW OF 258. Was in the process of amending the return and since I prepare ONLY 1040's, after entering the above figures on the 1040 I came up with a refund of 968.00, or 147.00 less than what was shown on the 1040EZ. I noted too that for the 1040EZ you have Make Work Pay Credit and EIC Worksheets as they don't use the EIC nor Sch M. For some odd reason, the Make Work Pay Credit worksheet gave client 147.00 more than the Sch M does. Thus the refund of 1115.00 is how the 1040EZ reads and that is the refund she received. I called Tech Support on this and the person didn't seem to want to help - he said you have different forms so that is what's going on. He wasen't

very cooperative at all. Am I doing something wrong on this? By the way, I use ATX Max software.

[Gail in Virginia]

I don't understand what is going on either. If I put your numbers on a 1040EZ, and then replace the EZ with a 1040, I get the same answer once I add a Sch M and answer the EIC questions. Is there any other relevant information - did he receive a previous payment on the Making Work Pay credit based on his income the previous year? I also use ATX Max

[kcjenkins]

Could there be a question you missed answering?

[Edward]

I found the problem. I re-entered everthing starting over and when I prepared the original 1040 Line 6 of the Schedule M did not compute which it should have done by automatically entering 75000, and therefore line 7 would have checked NO rather than yes and thus the line 8 entry would have not computed. Here again, I relied on the software automatically making entries rather than giving it a good physical check myself. However with the second preparation it did line 6 automatically. Wow, guess we have to be careful.

[Pacun]

I guess tech support was right and blamed the computer system.

[BulldogTom]

While I love ATX, it is not as robust in the diagnostics as other software packages. I don't know how long you have worked with ATX, but I learned a long time ago that it does not have many bugs, it does however have many ways for the operator to miss a check box, entry date, or question that needs to be entered to make the software calculate correctly. It is my opinion that this is the reason ATX users are better preparers than other software users - we have to be to make sure the answers the software spits out are correct. Just my humble opinion.

Tom

Hollister, CA