After first w2- federal said $5000, then after second w2, said $6049. Then once I clicked finish, it went down to $3026. Can anyone explain why?

[SusanY1 · Accepted solution]

It's hard to know exactly without knowing what else happened in the meantime but it is very common for the refund meter to make dramatic swings as you enter each new Form W-2 especially if one is significantly different from another. 

With each entry, you are adding additional income which raises your tax bracket and tax due but you may or may not be adding an equal amount of withholding.  You can also add income that either qualifies you or disqualifies you from certain credits.

TurboTax does everything it can to make preparing your taxes simple but calculating them is very complex!  What goes on behind the scenes involves a lot of moving parts, so without a good bit more information - it's truly impossible to know what may have happened in your case but the end result is the one that you can typically trust.  All of the numbers before that are just fun "guesses" the computer is making with limited information.