The Qualified Business Income Deduction, also know as the Section 199A deduction, allows owners of pass-through businesses to deduct up to 20% of these share of qualified business income. This measure that was made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act pertains to a few common business structures including:

Sole proprietorships
Partnerships
Limited liability companies (LLCs)
S corporations
To claim the deduction on Form 1040, there are two potential tax forms. Form 8995 is the easier option, but it’s only available to taxpayers who qualify.

Who can take the pass-through deduction?
As a reminder, pass-through income is any business income that’s counted on your individual tax return, rather than on a business’s tax return, and so isn’t subject to business taxes. The pass-through deduction is normally offered to business owners whose 2021 taxable income before the qualified business income deduction falls below $164,900 for single filers or $329,800 for maried people filing jointly. However, it includes rules and limitations.

If you qualify to use the simplified form to claim the deduction, some of these limitations don’t apply.

What is Form 8995?
Using the simplified form to claim the pass-through deduction can save a lot of paperwork. The expanded version of the proper execution, 8995-A, has four sections plus four additional schedules, used to calculate the business’s qualified business income, potential deduction phaseouts, and the resulting deduction.

Form 8995 is comparatively easy. It includes just one single page with 17 lines. You can use this pared-down version if your total taxable income prior to the qualified business income deduction falls at or below the threshold mentioned above and you’re not a patron of ann agricultural or horticultural cooperative. If the taxable income prior to the qualified business income deduction is above the threshold, or you’re a patron of the cooperative, you must use the more difficult form.

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For example, say you’re a married taxpayer with a taxable income prior to the qualified business income deduction (line 15 of Form 1040) of $300,000. Since your earnings falls below the cut-off, you can claim the pass-through deduction using Form 8995. If, however, your taxable income prior to the qualified business income deduction was $350,000, you will need to utilize 8995-A instead.

Claiming the pass-through deduction on 8995
Although TurboTax will help you determine whether you qualify for the pass-through deduction and complete the required forms, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of the info on your tax return. Here’s a synopsis of the details that goes on Form 8995.

Lines 1-4: Qualified business income
Line 1 of the form includes lines to list up to five businesses and offer each business’s Taxpayer Identification Number and qualified business income (or loss). On lines 2 through 5, you enter the full total qualified business income, any qualified business loss carried over from your prior-year tax return and multiply the full total by 20%.

Lines 6-10: REIT dividends and PTP income
If you received dividends from a real estate investment trust (REIT) or income from a publicly traded partnership (PTP), that income is also used to calculate your pass-through deduction. On lines 6 through 9, you enter your present year income from these kind of investments, carryovers from the prior year, and multiply the full total by 0.2 to find 20%.

Lines 11-15: Income limitation
If your total taxable income prior to the qualified business income deduction is less than $164,900 ($329,800 for joint filers) for 2021, your pass-through deduction is the lesser of:

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Your taxable income reduced by net capital gains
Your qualified business income
Lines 11 through 14 ask you to provide your taxable income, net capital gains (usually the full total of lines 3a and line 7 from your Form 1040), subtract net capital gains from your qualified business income, and multiply the effect by 0.2 to find 20%. You enter the total amount from line 10 or line 14, whichever is less. That is your pass-through deduction.

Lines 16-17: Loss carryforwards
If your net qualified business income is negative, then you have a professional business loss. You can’t claim a deduction on your current year’s return, but you will carry losing forward to the following year. Lines 16 and 17 to calculate losing you’ll carry forward.

Fortunately, you don’t have to learn all of the rules and limitations or worry about entering the right numbers on the right forms when claiming the pass-through deduction by yourself.