Should our federal refund drop $600 and state refund drop $100 when filing married jointly, after I input my W-2 although it does not change our tax bracket?

[sm_ashly21]

My husband is military and is resident in Georgia while I am resident in Colorado. My W-2 is from CO and his from GA. my income was only $1600. No federal income tax withheld from my income but soc security and medicare withheld.

[DanaB27]

Yes, it can change the refund when you enter your W-2 since you did not have any withholdings.

Please be aware that you can claim your military spouse's state of legal residence if you wish to make filing taxes easier. Then all your income earned will be taxable only in his state no matter where you are stationed. Please see Military Spouses and State Taxes for details.

[sm_ashly21]

so it dropping by $600 federally and $100 state is normal? That amount doesn't seem high? 

[ThomasM125]

$600 divided by $1,600 is about 37%, which is the highest federal tax bracket. So unless your combined income is over $510,000, it is unlikely that the additional federal tax is the result of simply tax on your income. The state percentage is about 6%, so that makes sense.

If you have a dependent, it is possible that you have an earned income credit and that can go down as your income increases. So, that could be a factor.

You can see your federal form 1040 while working online in TurboTax, so you can remove the additional income and look at your return then re-enter it to see what is going on.

You can see your return by using these menu tabs in TurboTax:

1. Tools
2. Tax Tools (left side of the menu bar)
3. View Tax Summary
4. Preview my 1040 (left menu bar)