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Deleted Erroneous Tax Category and Quarterly Estimated Payment Subcategory Still Comes Back

SRC54

I've been meaning to post this for some time.

I kept deleting the erroneous category, because I thought this had been fixed. It was back again this morning in my category list although I don't use this as I used a different category.

I deleted it again. I tried to find to no avail the old discussion on this so apologize if this has already been discussed.

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Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

Thank you for reaching out! To clarify your issue, you delete a category, and later it shows back up in the categories list, correct? Do you mind sharing which category you are deleting? Is it one of the default categories or a custom one? Let us know!

SRC54

@Coach Jon This was a known bug that Coach Natalie said had been fixed, but I couldn't find this announcement today when I searched for it.

This is a category I never had, and it keeps coming back and I keep deleting it. I've deleted it at least a couple of dozen times. What triggers it to come back is beyond me.

It is a category called Taxes and a subcategory called Quarterly Estimated Tax. I don't want them or need them. It's been around for a few months.

Thanks.

Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

Thank you for the reply. I believe the alert you are referring to is now archived. It had to do with a known issue regarding a duplicate 'Taxes' category. Is this what you are still seeing? Two different 'Taxes' parent categories? If you can provide a screenshot of the issue from your side showing this, it would be very helpful!

SRC54

@Coach Jon That is exactly it. I have my withholdings and tax payments in another category. This erroneous one keeps coming back. I kept deleting it because it was fixed, so I will post a screen shot next time it comes back.

But remember my category is called Tribute and refers both to renderings to Caesar as well as to God. I don't have a Tax category per se.

Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

A screenshot showing the issue would be great if you could provide it the next time this issue occurs for you. This will allow us to determine if it is indeed a bug or something specific to the category. As well as the next steps. Thank you!

DryHeat

@SRC54

I seeing something similar, but not exactly the same. My estimated tax categories look like this:

I use the "Federal Estimated Tax" category for my quarterly payments, but I have never used the "Federal Estimated Tax Payment" category outlined in red. I'm not sure when that one showed up, but I don't think it was there when I created the one I actually use.

Anyway, it is there now and cannot be deleted, nor can the name be edited. Its presence seems to be required. Oddly, though, there is an available menu option to delete the "Taxes" category of which it is a subcategory.

SRC54

@DryHeat That is weird; it may be because you are using QBP and I am on regular Simplifi. Yes, that Federal Estimated Tax Payment seems to be the culprit.

I think the next time it appears, I will move all my subcategories to this Taxes category and then delete my old category and rename Tax back to Tributes and Tithes. Then I'll see if that sticks.

Edit: I cannot fix it because I can only delete the parent category and not the subcategory of Federal Estimated Tax Payment. It is locked.

@Coach Jon

It's baaack:

Here's my category:

SRC54

@Coach Jon

It came back. Here's the screenshot:

Here's what the Subcategory says to me:

I deleted it again. Here's my category:

DryHeat

@SRC54

To sum up:

The reappearing subcategory is named "Federal Estimated Tax Payments" not "Quarterly Estimated Tax." So this is the same problem I am seeing.
You cannot delete the "Federal Estimated Tax Payments" subcategory directly.
But you can delete the parent "Taxes" category, which causes the "Federal Estimated Tax Payments" subcategory to disappear from the visible list.

I think the "Federal Estimated Tax Payments" subcategory is not really being deleted. It isn't showing because its parent category is missing after deletion. But after some time (or restarting, or whatever), the parent category "Taxes" is automatically recreated because the still-existing subcategory needs it in order to be displayed.

If I were in your shoes, I would move everything to the parent category "Taxes" — as you suggested — but I wouldn't rename it. I would leave it the way it is and see if that prevents future problems.

SRC54

@DryHeat I will probably try some things when it comes back. Right now, I am trying to discover what triggers it to come back. Usually happens within a few hours, but hasn't yet this morning.

Things that don't trigger it:

Closing and reopening app.
Signing out and signing in.
Using the phone app: updating, closing and reopening.
Fiddling with categories, rearranging or renaming.
Downloading new transactions.
Adding a manual transaction.

Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

Thanks for the update! I know that the 'Taxes' parent category, as well as the 'Federal Estimated Tax Payment' subcategory, are considered default categories in Quicken Simplifi. If transactions are coming in associated with these categories, that may be why they are returning. I would also agree that it may be best in this case to move everything to the default parent category 'Taxes' to prevent further issues like this.

SRC54

@Coach Jon Well, there are no transactions coming into these "default" categories. I assign all of those to other categories and deleted unused categories (or changed their names) 4 years ago. However, so far today it hasn't come back, and I am not sure why, but I have a theory.

I don't use a catch-all Taxes category because I put sales taxes in Spending, property tax in housing costs and personal property tax in automobile costs. So that only leaves Withholding and the only one I now have being retired is Federal Income Tax.

I will keep an eye out for it and keep deleting it. And will keep you updated as to what I discover. I will update you on my theory if and when it pans out.

Thanks.

SRC54

@Coach Jon Well, fingers crossed that I found the culprit. I had a recurring transaction using that erroneous Estimated Tax Payment, and it wasn't due to November. I started to delete it but I reassigned the series.

If it comes back, I will delete the series.

SRC54

@Coach Natalie Here it is. I cannot rename it or reorganize it. If I do, it just creates another one. There aren't supposed to be categories in Simplifi that show up in my categories list that I cannot delete or reorganize.

This isn't like the built-in ones e.g, Transfer, Credit Card Balance, etc.

Edit: This is a weird category in my category list (those above are not) and it is only the subcategory that is required. See below.

DryHeat

@SRC54

Is the one you are seeing the "Federal Estimated Tax Payments" category? I think that's one of the ones that @Coach Jon said is a default category that cannot be deleted.

I renamed it to something shorter and then it came back (so now I had two categories for the same thing). I gave up and reassigned my transactions to the default category and got rid of the renamed one.

(Note: I pay estimated taxes, so I actually need this category. I just wanted to rename it. Can't do it.)

SRC54

@Coach Jon @Coach Natalie

There are several points I want to make about this bug, which I believe is a bug that has now become a feature.

First of all, I was working with Support for a month on this. I was told that I could delete the category. Indeed it is the only category in my category list that I cannot delete, and it is a subcategory that has four words with it starting with federal, which is dumb because it gets confused with other categories. Actually I can delete it but it comes back, which means it wasn't meant to be required.

This bug was introduced in October in a spillover from QBP and Coach Natalie confirmed it was a bug and confirmed that it had been fixed. It didn't show up for me until after that. I have a long memory.

I sought a workaround as an expediency because I always figured out that this bug would be fixed. Support told me I could delete it but I needed to make sure there were no transactions tied to it (I found one) and no recurring reminders. I spent several weeks deleting caches, deleting all my apps and deleting all the data on every one of my devices (Support thought that was why it was coming back) until I could make sure it was a bug.

Today Support told me it is required, so . . .

Why is this one category required out of all the categories that we started with, all of which, I deleting, renamed and rearranged when i started with Simplifi in 2021. The things I require with Simplifi is that I can delete transactions, split them, reassign them, rename categories, delete categories and reorganize them. Now after having 5 years of data, all of a sudden this is the one solitary category that we must have and it is in a subcategory of a category I don't need and which is illogical in my way of doing things.

I don't need a taxes category because I put the tax where it belongs: in automobiles, spending, housing, etc.

Questions:

Why is this the only required category in Simplifi? To what feature is it connected? It is not connected to the taxes report, because I can turn it off from that.
Why not just make shopping a necessary category or federal taxes or whatever? Once you start telling us what categories we must have. When does it stop?
Why is it the only category that cannot be renamed? Reorganized? I actually could use the category but I don't name anything with four words much less one that starts with Federal. I keep my categories to one or two words.

SRC54

Here is the one I can delete but it comes back next day.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/64272#Comment_64272

I thought I had this fixed and then Support was working with me for a while.

SRC54

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/65521#Comment_65521

Yes, I was working with Support on this until today and today they changed their tune. Coach Natalie told me to reopen the case here so I have. I am sure they will fix this sooner or later, but it is a mystery how this started anyhow.

Until now we've always had 100% control over our category list in Simplifi. Sure we had the Transfer, Credit Card Payment and stuff like that but none of that shows up in our category list.

And as you say, you can delete it but it will come back and you cannot rename that awful "Federal Estimated Tax Payment". I don't think this was really intended to be in Simplifi. And flies in the face of the philosophy of the program.

I would have been back sooner to this in the community but Support was assuring me it could be deleted and the coaches here were busy with the Accounts and Savings Goals that went berserk two weeks ago.

DryHeat

@SRC54

Here is the one [Federal Estimated Tax Payment] I can delete but it comes back next day.

And as you say, you can delete it but it will come back

Actually, I said you could rename it, not delete it. I'm surprised that you can delete it, because in OBP there's no entry for "Delete" on the editing menu for that category. The only choice is "Edit," which lets you change the tax info but not the name.

SRC54

@DryHeat You are correct that it cannot be deleted but you can delete the parent category, which makes no sense. I can see no reason for this permanent subcategory in Simplifi, not QBP. And up until today Support agreed with me.

I tried renaming taxes and putting the thing into my other category. It does no good. It recreates itself.

If I rename taxes to ZZZ to put it at the end, it recreates itself with another subcategory of Federal Estimated Tax Payment. You can end up with hundreds of them. They're like tribbles.

And you cannot tell me this was intended.

Oh, and still I don't know if anyone with Plain Simplifi besides me has noticed this. No one has chimed in.

Edit: I am sure they will make a change at some point to let us hide this if they cannot let us delete it, but that surely perplexes me why it's there. Waiting to hear something back from the coaches.

Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

Thank you for all of the information and updates on this situation. I have reached out to my product team to confirm how the Taxes category should be working within Quicken Simplifi, as well as why the Federal Estimated Tax Payment subcategory cannot be deleted, and I will follow up here when I hear back.

SRC54

@Coach Jon Thank you. I was a while getting back to this because I was working with Support and thought I had it resolved on several occasions.

I also have the transcripts from Support where they tell me the bug has to do with the Tax Planner. I also told them I didn't have the Tax Planner as that was part of QBP. It convinces me this has bled over from that and is NOT supposed to be required in regular Simplifi.

Coach Jon

Hello @SRC54,

I am back with an update after receiving information on this category from our product team. They stated that this category is a required default category in Quicken Simplifi due to the Tax Planner feature expecting the category to exist, even for Basic subscribers. The delete option should not be available for this category.

I was advised, however, that our product team is exploring solutions for the required categories, including the ability to hide them within Quicken Simplifi in the future.

I hope this information helps clarify any confusion. Thank you!

SRC54

@Coach Jon Thanks. I don't understand why this is the one category that is default for the Tax Planner that we don't even have in plain Simplifi. I don't think there should be such things. When Quicken Classic had a Tax Planner in the Windows version, we defined what categories we wanted to use. Please pass this on to the developers. It is bad design.

But I appreciate that they are going to find a way for us to hide these categories in lists, etc. I can go with that.

Thanks!