Does TurboTax Home and Business allow you to forecast your tax liability?

[Kawika808]

How much mortgage interest should I pay to make my tax liability zero?

[xmasbaby0]

No one can see any of your information so if you are hoping for a specific number for how much mortgage interest you have to pay, no one can provide that.   You have the desktop download software, so you can "play" around with it and prepare as many "dummy" returns as you want in order to get estimates with various numbers.

In order for your mortgage interest to have any effect at all on your tax due or refund, you have to have enough itemized deductions to exceed your standard deduction.

Your itemized deductions have to be more than your standard deduction before you will see a change in your tax owed or tax refund.  The deductions you enter do not necessarily count “dollar for dollar;” many of them are subject to meeting  tough thresholds—medical expenses, for example, must meet a threshold that is pretty hard to reach.  The software program uses all the IRS rules that apply to the expenses you enter, and it tells you if you have enough to use your itemized deductions or if using the standard deduction is more advantageous for you.  Under the new tax laws, some deductions have been capped—there is a $10,000 limit to the itemized deductions for state, local, property and sales taxes. 

2024 STANDARD DEDUCTION AMOUNTS

SINGLE $14,600    (65 or older/legally blind + $1950)

MARRIED FILING SEPARATELY $14,600    (65 or older/legally blind + $1550)

MARRIED FILING JOINTLY $29,200    (65 or older/legally blind + $1550)

HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD $21,900    (65 or older/legally blind + $1950)

[VolvoGirl]

Well a very simple answer would be you have to pay as much interest as your total income to reduce your income to zero .  But that will not reduce any self employment tax if you have a net profit on schedule C.  

If you have the Desktop program you can do another test return, go up to File-New or save your return with another name to test in, go to File-Save As.

In Desktop there is also a What-If worksheet.

Go to Forms Mode, click Forms in the upper right or on the left for Mac. Then click Open Forms box in the top of the column on the left. Open the US listing of forms and towards the bottom find the What-if worksheet. It's right under Estimated Taxes.