Hi There,
I submitted my tax return through Turbo Tax two days ago. My Dad did the same. He is very analytical and actually reviewed his returned and compared the Federal tax that you guys calculated against the actual table and discovered it is wrong. I then reviewed mine and discovered the same thing. Has there been a change that I don't know about? Just to be sure, downloaded the 1040 instructions with the tax table from the IRS website. Same thing. What gives? Am I just missing something? I have always trusted you and recommended you. Thank you for your time.
Erika Kelly
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That might depend on just what "table" you are talking about and what kinds of income were entered. There are different tables for different kinds of income. Did you and your dad realize that and use the appropriate tables?
Very true.
Capital Gains and Qualified dividends add into Gross income, and taxable income.....BUT...they are taxed at different rates, even though they seem to be included in the total.. Special tax calculation worksheets are used when those types of $$ are included, and usually result in a lower tax than what is indicated on the tax tables.
Thank you. That may be the case because we both had capital gains. After doing further research, it appears that our incomes are just below the threshold where you have to pay tax on them, so now that makes more sense. Thanks again.
As you might guess, you don't provide enough information for another user to help you.
Supposing TT isn't wrong, as you suggest, there are various explanations for why there might be a difference. For instance, the tax tables are not always used to calculate your tax. Other things can affect this, like if you have capital gains.
So what can you do, other than share your actual return, which isn't really feasible here since this is a public community forum. Here are some possibilities:
1) Make a single change in your tax return. Does the small change get accurately reflected by the change in your tax? Try changing different things until you find where the discrepancy originates.
2) Look for help on "Why is my tax different from the tax table?" either in TT or online generally.
3) Look for a tax computation worksheet. (I use the downloaded version rather than the online version so I'm not sure exactly what you see, but there is a worksheet that does this calculation, and usually it can either be accessed under forms or by looking for the "source" of the entry for taxes on your federal return.
4) Use a tax estimator program to get a third opinion, and see which it agrees with--your manual calculation or TT's. Here's one: https://www.mortgagecalculator.org/calcs/1040-calculator.php
Other people may have other suggestions, but hopefully this will give you some ideas where to look. IF TT is making a mistake, you can narrow down where that mistake might be, but this is something that would be carefully error-checked before it got to you :-), so it's probably not just a general error in calculation.
Thank you. I believe we have figured it out. Please see my reply above. Appreciate all the suggestions.
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