Personal Taxprep 2018.3.2

Notice: The information on this page is only for users of Personal Taxprep 2018. If you are using Personal Taxprep Classic 2018, consult the help available in the program.

Conditions and Conditional Blocks

Conditions

A condition is made up of three elements:

  1. a conditional instruction;
  2. a comparison value (it can be a tax cell or a value); and
  3. an operator.

Conditional blocks

A conditional block is a paragraph that does not appear in the letter except under certain conditions. In letters supplied with Personal Taxprep, almost the entire letter appears in conditional blocks.

A conditional block begins with the instruction [IF () THEN] and ends with the instruction [END]. The intermediate instructions [ELSE] and [ELSE IF] allow you to create multiple level conditions.

Structure of a conditional block

The following example shows the various elements which make up a conditional block:

The first condition of this block contains three elements:

  1. The tax cell [Line 435 minus line 482] is the first comparison value.
  2. The operator "smaller than" (<).
  3. The numerical value 0.00 is the second value that allows a comparison to be made.

In an actual letter the condition can be much more complex and include many tax cells and operators.

The instruction [IF () THEN] is the starting point of the conditional block.

The entire conditional block is defined by the instructions [IF ()THEN] and [END].

The element [ELSE IF] is an intermediate instruction in the conditional block, which determines what will be printed should the first condition prove false. This instruction as well as the instruction [ELSE] allow the construction of several levels of conditions.

The [END] instruction is the final point of the conditional block.

The tax cell [Line 435 minus line 482] is used here to print the cell amount if the condition is true. The whole paragraph will be printed, including the cell.

Multiple level conditions

Using the conditions [ELSE] and [ELSE IF], you can also insert a condition within a condition. You can thus specify a general condition and then decide which paragraphs within the general condition must meet an additional condition.

Note: Multiple level conditions must be used very carefully because it may be hard to determine where one condition ends and another begins, especially concerning paragraph spacing.