New York State tax computation seems to be inaccurate -- over $3000

[wrdbrn]

Hello.  We have ordinary income and long term capital gains income.  NY treats it all as ordinary income for tax purposes.  According to NY.gov, in our tax bracket, the amount owed is $19,124 plus 6.85% of the amount over $323,200.  That comes out to $22,995 in our case.  Turbotax says tax owed is $26,011 (before resident credit).  Can anybody account for the apparent miscalculation?  Thanks!

[rjs · Accepted solution]

You didn't say whether you are a New York resident or a nonresident. I will assume you are a resident, filing Form IT-201. If that's not correct, disregard the rest of this reply.

It's not clear what you mean by "according to NY.gov." I don't think you can just pull your tax off the state web site. At your income level you have to calculate your New York tax using one of the worksheets under "Tax computation—New York adjusted gross income of more than $107,650" starting on page 45 of the Instructions for Form IT-201.

Also make sure you are comparing apples to apples. I'm not sure what "tax owed" you are looking at in TurboTax. When you calculate the tax on Form IT-201 line 39 using the appropriate worksheet, compare it to IT-201 line 39 in TurboTax. Look at the actual tax forms, not a summary screen in TurboTax.

[wrdbrn]

Thanks for the rapid reply.  We are residents, and I just completed the Tax computation worksheet.  The logic behind it is opaque, but I just plugged in all the numbers and did the calculations.  I'll probably run them again, but it turns out that TT's number is a little lower than the worksheet result.  So, that's the amount we'll pay.  Consider the question answered, and thanks again.