Why are my itemized deductions not showing up? I can't write off my tax preparation fee because it's saying I didn't itemize my deductions.

onna-stene — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 06:13:40 GMT

I itemized all of my deductions, but they are not showing up in my final check

You may indeed have carefully itemized all of your deduct...

GeoffreyG — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 06:13:43 GMT

You may indeed have carefully itemized all of your deductions, and yet still not see them benefit you in the final review section of TurboTax, or change the amount of your tax refund (or liability). TurboTax may also display a message indicating that you didn't itemize your deductions, when in fact you've entered them into the program.

The far most common reason for this is that is a taxpayer must have enough itemized deductions (in total) to exceed the standard deduction available to all taxpayers, based on their filing status. Since more than 2 in 3 taxpayers do not meet this level, most people end up taking the (more valuable) standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions. If you input all your data carefully, however, the TurboTax software will make that determination for you.

For example, a couple, under age 65, and filing a return as Married Filing Jointly (in 2016), has a standard deduction of $12,600. Thus, unless this taxpayer has more than $12,600 in itemized deductions to take, after all other limitations are applied (such as the 2% Adjusted Gross Income limit that reduces tax preparation fees and miscellaneous deductions down to $0, to the extent that they don't exceed more than 2% of a taxpayer's AGI figure), then the standard deduction has more "value" to it . . . and so the TurboTax software will therefore automatically select it.

Probably, then, the phenomena that you observe is related to the processes described above. However, if you'd like us to review your data entry and diagnose your tax return further, we'd be happy to do so with you.

Therefore, if you have further questions, or just want to speak with a live tax expert (including the ability to screen-share with your computer), please feel free to contact us. We would be happy to help you (and as a paying TurboTax customer the call is free to you). Here is a link where you can create a support ticket and reach us:

https://support.turbotax.intuit.com/contact/

Thank you for asking this question.

topic Why are my itemized deductions not showing up? I can't write off my tax preparation fee because it's saying I didn't itemize my deductions. in Deductions & credits

Why are my itemized deductions not showing up? I can't write off my tax preparation fee because it's saying I didn't itemize my deductions.

You may indeed have carefully itemized all of your deduct...