Refund decreased after an expense

[daklin]

Entered in the rental income and the refund went down--as expected.  But then when I entered the property taxes paid, the refund went down again, by over $1000!  Why would that happen?  As I added in more expenses for the rental the refund increased some more, but not even close to recouping the drop after the taxes.   Clueless why the refund dropped after the taxes were entered.

[Vanessa A · Accepted solution]

Generally when your refund drops after you enter expenses it is because you were getting some type of tax credit where your income was at the perfect level, then when you entered the expense so your income dropped causing you to qualify for a smaller credit or no credit.  This could happen for example with the earned income credit.  The Earned Income Credit works on a bell curve, your amount increases as your income goes up until it hits a peak and then it goes back down to $0.  

To figure out why this happened in your situation, look at your 1040 with the expenses added and write them down or print it out.  Then go back and remove the expenses, look at your 1040 with the expenses removed, then compare the two.  This will tell you where the change is coming from. 

To do this click the following after logging back into your return if you are using TurboTax Online:

• Tax Tools
• Tools
• View Tax Summary
• Preview My 1040

[daklin]

Thank you!