There seems to be a problem with the personal property tax calculator in the program...nothing changes the refund when I edit my personal property taxes

[wgh1947]

As an example, I added $100000...nothing changed...I changed my deduction to $0....nothing changed

[rjs]

There is nothing wrong with the program. There are a number of things that can cause your refund to not change when you put in an itemized deduction. The four most common reasons are the following. However, you have already eliminated reason 2 as a possibility by entering $100,000. Reason 3 might be the most likely explanation in your case.

1. You have not finished entering all of your other information besides the personal property tax.

2. Your total itemized deductions are less than your standard deduction, so TurboTax uses the standard deduction because it gives you a greater tax benefit. Therefore no itemized deductions on Schedule A affect your tax. If this is what's happening, it might change if you enter a very large deduction - large enough to make the total itemized deductions more than the standard deduction. If you have not yet entered all your other deductions, this could also change as you enter more deductions.

3. You are subject to AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax), in which case many itemized deductions, including personal property tax, are disallowed. The other disallowed deductions include state and local income taxes, sales tax, real estate tax, all miscellaneous deductions subject to the 2% of AGI limitation, certain mortgage interest, and some medical expenses. No matter how much you add to these deductions, your refund doesn't change because the deductions are disregarded. The more of these deductions that you have in the first place, the more likely it is that you are subject to AMT. If there is an amount on line 45 of your Form 1040, that indicates that you are subject to AMT. You may find that if you add a deduction, the amounts on Form 1040 lines 44 and 45 will change, but one gets higher while the other gets lower by the same amount, so your total tax on line 47 does not change.

4. Your deductions and credits have reduced your tax liability to zero. It cannot go any lower, no matter how many more deductions you have, so there is nothing more to refund. If this is your situation, Form 1040 line 63 will be zero and line 75 (which is your refund) will be equal to line 74.

[rjs]

I hadn't seen your earlier question when I posted this answer. It would be better if you keep all the related information in one thread. The fact that charitable contributions did not change your refund changes the picture. It makes reasons 1 and 4 above more likely explanations. There are so many interactions and limitations in a tax return that you cannot draw any conclusions about the effect of one particular entry unless the return is otherwise complete. So finish entering all your information, then try varying one deduction and see if it makes a difference. If not, check out reason 4 in my answer above.