On my 2015 federal taxes - my taxable income on line 43 is $128,502. TurboTax shows the tax for that to be $26,495, IRS tables would be $28,962. What the difference?

[VolvoGirl · Accepted solution]

It depends on what kind of income you have, if you have capital gains or qualified dividends the tax on line 44 is not taken from the tax table but is calculated separately from schedule D.  The tax will be calculated on the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet.  It does not get filed with your return.  In the online version you need to save your return as a pdf file and include all worksheets to see it.  

For the Desktop version you can switch to Forms Mode and open the worksheet to see it.  Click Forms in the upper right (upper left for Mac) and look through the list and open the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet.

[Critter]

There are many ways that taxes are calculated ... most common is if you had long term capital gains or qualifying dividends which are taxed at a lower rate.   Save a PDF of the return and review the worksheet for that line.