Turbotax Deluxe vs Premier - can you report stocks with Deluxe? (funds, income)

[unknown00]

Viewing their official website, Premier offers the following below over Deluxe

• Covers stocks, bonds, ESPPs and other investment income (Schedule D)
• Automatically imports investment income including cost basis (Schedule D)
• Covers rental property income and tax deductions (Schedule E)

Can I still report stock investments (like a dozen trades in the entire year) along with dividends without Premier? If yes, then what's the benefit of Premier?

[rjm1cc]

Yes you can record 1099-DIV and 1099 B with the Delux. You can also do a sch C. Don't know what extras you get from Prime.

[bUU]

Deluxe has the forms, which you can fill out. Premier offers guidance, more worksheets and more integrated assistance. What advantages are offered vary from year to year. For example, I'm not sure if this distinction is still the case, but a few years back I sold inherited shares of stocks and mutual funds. In Deluxe I could assuredly report those transactions. There was a blank space for cost basis (these were lots acquired prior to 2012). In Premier, that panel has a wizard which asks a series of questions, starting with date of death, but also included decision trees helping you navigate back through mergers and acquisition, spin-offs and carve-outs, etc., to what exactly you owned on the date of death, something which may have even been different from what you owned on the day you acquired the holdings. (You're liable for gains from date of death, with inherited holdings, not from date of acquisition.) That saved me hours of research work. (I know because my brother sold comparable holdings two years later, and only called me after struggling with the research for a few hours. My assistance to him? Well, he couldn't even use my info because there were so many perturbations of those holdings over that two year period that we couldn't track back from what he currently owned to even what I sold two years earlier. So I told him just to upgrade from Deluxe to Premier. Problem solved.)

[Mr. Lee]

I bought Premier because the extra money it cost may well be saved if just one item is not covered 100% correctly. I agree with the post above, it is asking me many more questions than deluxe did in past years before my tax situation became much more complex...

[johngolf]

Thanks for the posts. I have alway used Deluxe but beginning later this year, or maybe early next year, I will begin selling some of my investments. I will need to look at how Deluxe handles the cost basis, etc. Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

[bUU]

Keep in mind what I subtly alluded to earlier, about holdings that you acquired since 2012. The law changed forcing brokerages to keep track of cost basis for you, and report it to the IRS. So that specific advantage of Premier will erode over time as fewer and fewer people who inherited holdings prior 2012 are still holding those holdings.