The first tab on this form is the Tax Data Tab. On this tab you can enter items that affect the clients’ tax situation—both items that increase or lower their taxable income.
If you want to create a Tax and Cash Flow Form, you must fill out only one vital item:
Filing Status: If you are displaying the Message Center, you can see that you can type 1 for Single, 2 for Married, filing joint, 3 for Married, filing single, or 4 for Head of Household. MasterPlan will not let you into the Report window if you haven’t entered this information for the current client.
The Filing Status can vary from year to year. For example, the client might be single this year, but planning to get married in Year 2 (Column 2).
Let’s fill out the Filing Status. As you do this, you will learn techniques for entering data into this “spreadsheet” form.
Note: Remember, you can press the F1 key for help.
Click in Row 1, Column 1 (Filing Status for the first year of the projection). Type 2 for Married, filing joint and tab to Column 2.
Now let’s use a shortcut Function Key to speed up our data entry.
Press F6 to open up the Escalation
Dialog Box. Notice that you can type a percentage of increase for the
number of years desired. We want the same Filing Status to continue into
the future at the same level (in other words, escalate at 0%), so without
changing anything in the dialog box, simply press the 
key or click on OK.
MasterPlan will repeat the 2 in each cell in this row.
Press the Home key and press
the key again or click in Row 2, Column 1 for Exemptions.
You will probably want to enter the following data items.
Exemptions: This can vary from year to year.
Salary and/or Self-Employment Income for the client and/or spouse. MasterPlan will automatically calculate the appropriate FICA, and will even take the legally allowed amount of FICA and Medicare Tax as an Adjustment to Income for the self-employment salary.
Notice that the Tax Data Tab includes rows for items such as Interest Income, Ordinary Income, and Contributions to Retirement Assets.
If you are doing a quick tax estimation, and you don’t want to do detailed asset data entry, then you can summarize data year by year and enter it on this form.
If you want to do a comprehensive or more detailed plan, and you plan to enter the assets with the interest rates, dividends, capital gains, etc., then you should not fill out lines such as the Interest Income and Ordinary Income lines. MasterPlan will automatically pick up the tax and cash flow effects from the asset forms when it creates the reports.
Basically the rule is this: except for Filing Status, Exemptions, and Earned Income, anything you enter here will be added to what is calculated from the database.
On the Client window, you tell MasterPlan whether you want it to calculate Social Security Benefits, or if you want to enter them manually. If you want to enter them manually, then type them here on the Tax Data Tab.
You might want to fill out the Ziegfield’s form as follows:
NOTE: Remember to press F6 in Year 2 or beyond to hold the exemptions from that year at the same level into the future. If you enter dependent children on the Client Window Dependents Tab, MasterPlan will automatically drop them as exemptions when they go past Grade 16 (4th year of college). For Salary or Self-Employment Income, you might want to escalate them at 3%, or at 5.7%.
Also, for now we will assign an Owner to the Tax and Cash Flow Form of All Clients.
Press the following keys or combinations of keys to perform the following actions:
Tab to move horizontally to the right.
Shift+Tab to move horizontally to the left.
to go down to the next row. However, if you have
just returned from the Escalation Dialog Box and the row is selected,
pressing moves you horizontally.
F2 to reveal the formula in the currently selected cell. Pressing F2 again opens the Cell Text Dialog Box. Clicking OK redisplays the value in the cell.
F3 to move you from tab to tab—for example from the Tax Data Tab to the Cash Flow Tab. Or right-click on an unselected cell and select the tab to which you want to jump.
F6 to open the Escalation Dialog Box.
F7 to open the Copy Formula Dialog Box. You must be one cell to the right of a cell with a formula to see this box; otherwise, you get a message telling you that there is not a valid formula to copy.
F8 to reset formulas back to the original.
