My Tax Software and Simplified vs. General Rule

L1: My Tax Software and Simplified vs. General RuleThanks for a very informative site! I have a question re use of Simplified Method or the General Rule to calculate the taxable portion of an SEPP.
My wife has a non-qualified variable annuity. According to IRS publication 575, page 11, under “Who Must Use The Simplifed Method”, it would appear to indicate, under item 1, that she should use the General Rule to figure the taxable portion of her SEPP (it also reiterates this a little further down the page, as well).
Yet our tax software, Turbo Tax Premier, appears to only calculate the taxable portion of the SEPP using the Simplifed Method.
Even though I’m just a mere mortal, I tried as best I could to make my own General Rule calculations following the IRS instructions. Under the General Rule, the taxable portion that I calculated came out to be a few hundred dollars more than what the tax software automatically calculated for using the Simplifed Method.
Should I override the Tax Software and put in my own calculations from the General Rule, or should I trust that using the Simplified Method will be OK.
From reading your site, I understand that quite a lot of things changed in 2004 regarding rulings on Annuities. Was the General Rule vs Simplified Method one of the things that changed along with everything else?
Thanks
Steve2005-03-19 05:15, By: Steve, IP: [66.73.168.3]

L2: My Tax Software and Simplified vs. General RuleI can only sugegst that you talk to your accountant, or even better, the company that issued the contract. Since its their contract, they should be able to offer guidance.
My guess is that if you are doing withdrawals(and not an annuitization)for the SEPP that all distributions will be considered 100% taxable as long as therre is any gain in the contract.
When the gain is 100% eliminiated, the balance will be received as a return f premium.2005-03-21 16:16, By: Gfw, IP: [172.16.1.73]