Why is the standard deduction not being reflected in my figures? With it I should have no taxable income, yet Turbotax insists I owe money. How can I troubleshoot this?

[Vanessa]

What is your filing status?  How much did you earn?

[VolvoGirl]

Have you looked at your 1040?  You can preview the 1040 or print the whole return <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901539-how-do-i-preview-my-turbotax-online-return-before-filing">...>

[bouguereaugirl]

My income was less than $15,000, and my status is married-filing jointly.

[Vanessa]

Did your spouse have income?

[DoninGA]

Are you reporting a profit from self-employment?

[Vanessa]

What is on lines 8-11 on your 1040?  

[bouguereaugirl]

My spouse did not have any income, and my profit was from self-employment/freelance work (reported on a 1099-MISC). I paid Estimated Taxes throughout 2018, so what I owe isn't a penalty.

[Vanessa]

It is self-employment tax.  The standard deduction does not eliminate that.

[VolvoGirl]

Even though your taxable income is zero you still owe self employment tax.  Did you enter the estimated payments you made?

[bouguereaugirl]

Ah, I see. I did enter the estimated payments I made, but what I owe is the difference between what I paid and what the system calculated my total self-employment tax would be. Thank you for your help, guys!

[SweetieJean]

Solved in comments.

[VolvoGirl]

Self Employment tax (Scheduled SE) is automatically generated if a person has $400 or more of net profit from self-employment.  You pay 15.3% SE tax on 92.35% of your Net Profit greater than $400.  The 15.3% self employed SE Tax is to pay both the employer part and employee part of Social Security and Medicare.  So you get social security credit for it when you retire.  You do get to take off the 50% ER portion of the SE tax as an adjustment on 1040 Schedule 1 line 27.   The SE tax is already included in your tax due or reduced your refund.  It is on the 1040 Schedule 4 line 57 which goes to 1040 line 14.  The SE tax is in addition to your regular income tax on the net profit.