ItsDed shows total donations $3600. Estimated savings of $1016. However, on TT import my "amount owed" lowers by only $60. Add $50 donation, owed changes $12. How?

[jmeray]

itsDED shows total donations of $3600. Estimated savings of $1016. When i import into TurboTax my AMOUNT OWED drops by $60 only. When i go into turbo tax and delete one of the imported transactions worth $50, my amount owed increases by $12.  So a $50 donation changed my amount owed by $12. How can a $50 donation change my amount owed by $12, and a $3600 group of donations only change my amount by $60?  Is TT not really seeing the all of the imported donations?

[ChristinaS · Accepted solution]

Before adding the $3600, your itemized deductions (mortgage interest, real estate taxes, state taxes or sales taxes, charity, etc) must have been under the standard deduction. When your itemized deductions are under the standard, Turbo Tax keeps the standard deduction in place. A small amount of the $3600 must have gotten you over the standard hump. Now that you are officially itemizing, an addition of $50 saves you about 25% in taxes.

A $1000 savings from your donations would only be logical if your other itemized deductions already exceeded the standard deduction. In your case, it is clear that you needed a large chunk of your itemized charitable donations just to meet the standard amount.

Standards:

$6300 Single, Married Separate

$12,600 Married Joint

$7600 Head of Household

plus additional allowance for blind and/or 65+ years of age

[jmeray]

Thanks for the response. I entered my question twice it seems (the first time I got an error so I did it again but it seems it posted twice). So because turbo tax does CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS before it does Receipts/sales tax/etc, it seems I used my charitable contributions to "reach" the standard-deduction amount like you said.  it then would make sense to me that I could "visibly see" the impact to my charitable contributions better, if I remove them all, then go add my itemized sales receipts for taxes/etc, which will bring me above the standard deduction.... AND THEN..... I should go add my charitable contributions, which would at that time allow me to visibly see the appropriate impact of those contributions. Agree?

[ChristinaS]

Yes, if you have enough non-charity itemized deductions.... you may want to add all the other stuff first (like sales tax, mortgage, real estate taxes) so you can get a better idea of the charity impact. If you go through the program by being guided instead of choosing what you wish to work on, it does go to mortgage interest and taxes first.

If you personally want to know the isolated impact of the charity, agreed.... work on it last.

[jmeray]

Thanks very much!

[ChristinaS]

Happy to help!