@sasho1987
Its not clear to me why the IRS estimator would not work, unless you had not had a paycheck from your new job when you did it. The IRS calculator is going to work best when you’ve had at least one or two paychecks from your current job, so that you can enter your prior history and then your future information will all be based on the new job.
If you were to run your estimates without considering the 401(k) or HSA, then at worst, you would have too much tax withheld and you would get a refund.
Another way to prepare an estimate would be to pull together an estimate of your wife’s W-2 for 2022 plus your two W-2s for 2022 and then enter them in TurboTax for 2021. This will not be 100% accurate and will not take into account any tax law changes that occur later this year, but it would give you a reasonably accurate tax return. If you are using TurboTax online, be sure to create a new test account with a different username and password then your regular account, you don’t want to change the figures in your as-filed return.
If you are making HSA contributions by payroll deduction, you ignore them completely on your W-2. They are not included in box 1, Box 3, or box 5. Treat them as though you had agreed to a reduction in your taxable salary so the money is not included in your income at all, and then the employer makes the contribution for you. Contributions to a pretax 401(k) are subtracted from your box 1 wages but they’re still considered “earned income “and our subject to Social Security and Medicare withholding in box 3 and 5.
To create your estimate, I would start by creating three projected W-2s. Don’t combine all of your incomes and then look at the effect of payroll deductions, take the effect of the payroll deductions first on each W-2. Once you get the three estimated W-2s, you can add up your AGI and subtract the standard deduction to get your taxable income, and then look up the tax in the tax tables. Then compare the tax with the estimated withholding from the three W-2s.
