There has to be a way for the system to show how the different Capital Gains are treated with a different tax rate rather than adding it all together, as shown by the Adjusted Gross Income line of the 1040, which after deductions is directly used to obtain the Taxable income and to calculate the final tax, a calculation that obviously is not plainly applying the 24% tax bracket formula, for example, but rather becomes a mix bag of $ by just looking at the “secretly calculated by appearance” final tax $ TurboTax shows.
My point is that TurboTax internally may do all those calculations well but it will be useful for the tax payer if the software is more open to show what part of the income is taxed at what % and what other part is taxed at the 24% tax bracket formula for example. As it is, the software just collects the data and massages it into a black box to come up with a single tax $ number for the 1040, rather than also educate the payer about how the final tax dollar number on the 1040 is obtained.
This is not an issue of distrust of what TurboTax does but rather to educate the tax payer, and software payer, with a logical presentation how the final tax is calculated based on the data provided.
