I just spoke with a TurboTax rep and he cleared it up for me. My pdf output was the following:
===
Adjusted Gross Income $ 136,999.00
Taxable Income $ 110,565.00
Total Tax $ 25,607.00
Total Payments/Credits $ 33,946.00
Amount to be Refunded $ 8,339.00
Effective Tax Rate 14.04%
===
The way they end up with 14% is {Refund / (Total Tax + Total Payments/Credits)} = 8339 / (25,607+33,946) = 14%.
Not only does this in no way reflect my effective tax rate, but it is a completely meaningless metric: My refund as a percentage of the sum of my tax and my payments. Seriously?
I can only conclude that this is a bug in their software and I hope that this comment puts those users at ease that were similarly concerned when they saw their calculated effective tax rate.
