Entering dividend income from T5 slips-Manual input required of 3 amounts

[T1filer]

With Turbotax, to enter dividend income as reported on a T5 slip, it is necessary to input all 3 amounts: (i) actual amount of dividend, (ii) taxable amount of dividend, and (iii) dividend tax credit.  

1.  With other similarly-priced competitor software, it is not necessary to enter all 3 amounts.  For example, if the user enters the actual amount of the dividend, the software can automatically calculate what the taxable amount is and what the dividend tax credit should be.  Why is Turbotax different?  The requirement to manually input these amount increases the risk of human error when the calculations could be easily done by the software.  Is this something that can be passed on to the appropriate Turbotax department as a way of improving the software (to make it competitive with other brands)?

2.  Is there a check in Turbotax that will catch any human input errors?  For example, if the user received and enters an actual amount of eligible dividend of $100, but makes a mistake and enters the taxable amount to be $125 instead of the correct $138, will Turbotax catch and correct this, perhaps as part of the Review steps?

Thank you.

[Triet Pham]

Hello,

TurboTax also have the feature to auto calculate the other fields for you if you just provide the input for the dividend. If you enter the value in box 24 there and move forward to the next step, it will populate other fields (box 25). However, the reason why we allow input in the other fields is to provide a way to override the values in case the value in the payslips is different from what is auto-calculated. 

Regarding your question on catching any human input errors during the inputs, TurboTax already have the auto calculation feature which use the correct formula to calculate the values for you. If you choose to override the value, then there's no validation on that again

[T1filer]

Thank you for your response.

1.  I assume that the calculate feature is automatic and we do not have to turn it on?  I tried to test this by entering the actual amount of eligible dividend in Box 24 for T5 slips, but I don't see Boxes 25 and 26 being auto-populated?  Furthermore, the amount entered in Box 24 does not get carried forward at all to the T1-SUPP, T1 Worksheet or the T1 General.  This seems to imply that the user is required to hard key all 3 boxes relating to dividend income received in the T-Slips?

2.  The taxable amount of eligible dividends and the dividend tax credit are defined specifically by reference to a formula; therefore, unless the tax rules change, the tax slips should not be different from what is auto-calculated by Turbotax (unless the tax slips were prepared incorrectly), so I am still not clear why Turbotax does not just ask for Box 24 and leave it at that.  There is no way Box 25 can be anything other than 1.38 times the amount reported in Box 24, because that is the formula prescribed for purposes of the Income Tax Act.