To answer your question, let's show you how to mechanically enter your gambling losses, and then discuss some important tax attributes related to such losses.
To begin, then, you indicate that you already know where to enter your W-2G. That's great, because you're only just a few short screens away from the one to enter your gambling losses. After you've input your W-2Gs, and you've arrived at the W-2G summary page, you can just keep clicking forward two more screens from this point, and you should be at the gambling losses entry page. Please use the attached screen-capture images at the bottom of this screen as a guide (simply click to enlarge).
If that doesn't work, then you should be able to navigate there by entering the exact term "gambling losses" into Find / Search box on your TurboTax screen, and then clicking the Jump To link that should appear below.
Once you've found the place to enter your gambling losses, and have done so, you need to be aware of some important facts.
First, it is
important to understand that gambling losses are deductible only to the extent
of gambling winnings. Moreover, gambling
losses are only deductible if a taxpayer has enough itemized deductions, in
total, to exceed the standard deduction for their filing status.
For example, in
2016, a Married Filing Jointly couple under age 65 has to have at least $12,600
or more in total itemized deductions in order to itemize them and see any
actual tax reduction benefit. Unless
they have more than $12,600 in deductions, they are better off using the
standard deduction of $12,600 (TurboTax automatically makes this determination
in the software). And because gambling
winnings are always taxable while gambling losses are not always deductible,
that could be a reason you would see your refund go down when you input
winnings and losses.
Second, the
addition of additional income from gambling onto your tax return could have
pushed you into a higher marginal income tax bracket, even if your gambling
losses were deductible in full.
Either, or
both, of these phenomena would certainly cause a tax refund to decline; or your gambling losses to not completely offset your gambling winnings, even if they are of identical dollar amounts or your losses exceed your gains.
Hopefully that makes things clearer, and you won't have any trouble entering your losses.
However, if you have
further questions, still experience trouble with the mechanical data entry, or if you just want to speak
with a live tax expert who can walk you through your TurboTax entries
(including the ability to screen-share with your computer), please feel free to
contact us. We would be happy to help
you (and as a paying customer, the call is free to you). Here is a link where you can create a support
ticket and reach us:
https://support.turbotax.intuit.com/contact/
Thank you for
asking this important question.
