Treasury money markets and Turbotax

[sophie]

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, but this is driving me nuts...

Both Vanguard and Fidelity are reporting Treasury MM interest as "ordinary dividends", but does not specify the amount that's US Treasury interest. For FDLXX and VUSXX this is should be just about 100% of the "dividends", for FZFXX it's some fraction (I think about half).

Since Turbotax has no way to know about the US goverment interest, how do you deal with this? I would like to not pay 11% taxes on this $$, thank you very much. There's a place where you get to tell Turbotax how much US government interest you received, but...do I have to calculate all this myself, and will NYS just take my word for whatever number I put down?

If any of you know how to solve this please let me know - thanks!

[yankees60]

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, but this is driving me nuts...

Both Vanguard and Fidelity are reporting Treasury MM interest as "ordinary dividends", but does not specify the amount that's US Treasury interest. For FDLXX and VUSXX this is should be just about 100% of the "dividends", for FZFXX it's some fraction (I think about half).

Since Turbotax has no way to know about the US goverment interest, how do you deal with this? I would like to not pay 11% taxes on this $$, thank you very much. There's a place where you get to tell Turbotax how much US government interest you received, but...do I have to calculate all this myself, and will NYS just take my word for whatever number I put down?

If any of you know how to solve this please let me know - thanks!

For Vanguard, this is what I use every year: https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/USGO_012020.pdf.

Does it give you the answer for VUSXX?

Vinny

[sophie]

Yes I found all that...my question was how you actually enter this info on tax forms. I guess you just total it up, enter it somewhere on the tax forms with no need to "show your work" so to speak?

[yankees60]

Yes I found all that...my question was how you actually enter this info on tax forms. I guess you just total it up, enter it somewhere on the tax forms with no need to "show your work" so to speak?

I use H&R Block tax software and on the 1099-DIV input form there is a box for the % of income from government obligations so that the correct amount goes to the state tax form.

Here it is:

Capture.JPG (50.17 KiB) Viewed 4946 times

By the way, I helped someone last year complete his tax return using TurboTax. I found it much more difficult determining how to enter information like this compared to it being much easier using H&R Block.


Vinny

[sophie]

Thanks Vinny, I can see why that is!

I'll look to see if Turbotax has a similar worksheet but I doubt it. I think they only allow you to record the total USG interest across all funds, with nowhere to explain where the number came from. It's kind of like a big red "audit me" flag.

[Kriegsspiel]

Looking at VSBSX (Vanguard short term Treasury fund), 100% of their distributions came from Treasury/Agency bonds, and according to their portfolio holdings, they only hold Treasuries. Why doesn't Vanguard list VSBSX dividends under Treasury interest?