How do you calculate the annualized values for "Deduction for Qualified Business Income"?

[nickos007]

I'm trying to fill out this form in TurboTax and would like to know the correct way to calculate the Annualized values to enter on this screen:

And why doesn't TurboTax guide me to calculate these values rather than expecting me to figure it out?

[HopeS]

The Qualified Business Income Deduction is a computation that you have to calculate outside of TurboTax in order to enter these amounts.

Below is the formula:

The deduction is either A or B, whichever is less:

• A = 50% of the business's W-2 wages paid (or 25% of the W-2 wages paid plus 2.5% of the business's unadjusted basis in all qualified property), whichever one is the greater amount
• B = 20% of QBI

The return requires you to enter these deductions in the periods as illustrated in your screenshot. 

You will also need to review the guidance in the link below for a better understanding:

Qualified Business Income

@nickos007 

[nickos007]

Thank you very much for you response.

It is interesting that the article you linked states "The calculations also get quite complicated, but TurboTax easily handles them and will figure out how much of a deduction you’re entitled to."

I do wonder why TurboTax expects users to manually calculate these complicated values when apparently it is clearly capable of guiding me and calculating them on my behalf. I face a similar issue when trying to use TurboTax to calculate estimated taxes throughout the year. TurboTax simply prompts me to enter my expected AGI instead of helping me calculate an accurate value. Why doesn't TurboTax help users calculate these values instead of forcing us to manually find and fill out a plethora of IRS forms? I'm beginning to wonder whether there are better alternatives out there that would make tax filing and estimated tax payment calculation easier.