Retirement tax questions

Thank you for the info.

I have another question that I have been trying to figure out for the last 30 minutes.

I have a couple who are married. The info goes as follows: $17,800 W2, $772 IRA dist/1099-R, and $48,086 in Social Security ($5,321 becomes taxable after going through the worksheet).

So right now I have 17,800 in earned income, and about 23,900 in AGI.

I went to see what the AGI limits were for AGI EIC and it is $22,610 for MFJ, no kids.

I was trying to see if they were to put $2-3k into an IRA then what would happen with the EIC because AGI would drop below the limit. (note that the previous stated taxable SSI will be less after the 2-3k IRA goes in, but that probably doesn't matter because it seems to be limited/disallowed by something else.)

When I did this, followed the instructions and looked over the worksheet - the tax software does not fill box 5 when by my knowledge it should (see pic). The credit seems to look at the table for earned income, then for AGI, grab the amounts based on the table, then take the lessor if the 2 to give the credit.

I am wondering how I am being limted?

Thank you.

Here is the IRS link to the EIC table - first is the taxable income table then midway down is the EIC table:

https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040tt