Significant deductions over 27,700 but turbotax desktop making me take standard

[GinColorado]

Hello, I'm a long time user of desktop. 

With my property taxes, charity gifts, and investment expenses I am at about 40K of itemized deductions. However, Turbotox still says the standard is better for me.

The big change this year is I did get a big bonus and paid a lot in Colorado state tax.

When I click 'done with deductions', the next screen does a 2022 2023 compare and it has me at the standard deduction and shows nothing for charity (even though I entered it). under state or local taxes great than 10,000 it shows a (-40,768)

Any idea why turbotax is choosing the standard? I printed my return and forms and tried to trace it to a rule but couldn't figure it out.

[TomK2023 · Accepted solution]

Have you tried...

Change Standard to Itemized Deductions (or vice versa):

1. Open your return.
2. Enter itemized deductions in the Search box.
3. Click on jump to itemized deductions link.
4. Click on I'll choose what to work on blue box.
5. Scroll down and click on Done with Deductions blue box.
6. After review, click on Continue, and Continue again.
7. Check Check box Change my deduction to switch deduction choice.  See image below.

[GinColorado]

holy cow!!! this is a huge bug with the software.

It showed itemezed deductions of 48K but kept the 27,700 recommended. Why wouldn't it automatically choose the larger one? this is the first year I have seen this.

Thank you

*this is the radio button I had to choose

[SusanY1]

When TurboTax gives the summary of your deductions, it summarizes everything that is entered, which may include some things that are subject to limitations.  

For example, you may have $20,000 in state and local taxes (SALT) as part of the summary total, but only $10,000 of this amount can actually be used.  Similarly, it may show all of the amount of medical expenses entered, even though only the amount greater than 7.5% of your AGI is used. 

If you use the method suggested above by @TomK2023 to switch from one to the other you may see that the actual amount of itemized deductions able to be used is lower than the standard deduction.  Tha majority of the time, this is the issue.  

If you are still not feeling confident, please let us know and we can try to assist with additional troubleshooting to ensure that you're seeing the largest deduction possible. 

[Dtklima]

Thank you! I thought I was losing my mind... who doesn't this time of year? Anyway, same thing happened to me. Gave me the Good New about the $27K in standard deductions but my itemized amount was higher. After following the directions provided in the answers, I was able to change it to itemized which gave me over $100K in deductions. SMH. I am soooo relieved.  Best of luck everyone!