I added 3 w2's after I enter the last 2 w2s it drop my federal refund down. Why did it drop down?

[xmasbaby0]

WHY DID MY REFUND GO DOWN WHEN I ADDED ANOTHER W-2?

When you added more income, your tax liability increased, so you saw your refund decrease.  The program begins by giving you your personal exemption of $4050 plus your standard deduction—both of which lowered your taxable income. So you are not being taxed on as much of the income on that first W-2.  Then you added taxable income--so the refund went down. Your refund (or tax due) is based on the total of your income, not “per W-2.”  Wait until you have entered ALL of your income and deduction information.  You can't really tell anything until it is all entered.  That “refund monitor” does not mean anything until everything has been entered.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2273878-why-did-my-refund-drop-when-i-entered-another-w-27

[Julio Rodriguex]

Sooo if I keep adding W2s my return will keep going down? That's all I'm seeing and it doesn't make sense how the more you worked the less of a return you'll get. Doesn't seem like anyone can make that make sense. The answer I got from this was "keep adding more W2s because it'll fix itself after it has all your income" u means that it will go down again. With contract jobs and small projects I have about 4 W2 to enter I've entered three and watched my return continue to dwindle letting me know that working more definitely doesn't mean a bigger return. Hell it looks like the opposite.

[xmasbaby0]

Have you worked on credit and deductions yet?  Entered any dependents?   

You do realize that a big refund just means you gave the government an interest free loan all year?

[JohnB5677]

If you work multiple jobs, or if you have a spouse that works, you may not have had enough taxes withheld.   

Each job that you work will calculate the tax withholding for that job alone.   As you add additional W-2's your income will continue to go up, but the amount withheld will be at a lower taxable rate.

If you wish to adjust this for the future, you should submit a FORM W-4 to each employer.

[Talee98]

I entered in 2 of my w2’s and my refund was around 9,000 then I entered in my 3rd w2 and it dropped down to 4,000. I also claimed two of my kids which are under the age of 6. (1 & 3). So how am I only getting back that much when I claim 1 on my paychecks & none of my tax info has changed.. doesn’t make sense. That’s also with all my tax breaks.

[xmasbaby0]

The "refund monitor" starts off by giving your all of the stimulus money and all of the child tax credit because the software does not know yet that you received stimulus money or that you received some advance child tax credit payments.    That gets reconciled later.

That "refund monitor" changes as you enter information.      That is normal.   And you cannot take it seriously until you enter ALL of your information---even though it is so tempting to believe that the highest amount is the "right" refund.

More income = more tax----so when you added the other W-2, you owed more tax.   And that "refund" has to drop when you tell the software that you already received stimulus money or advance child tax credit money because you cannot get that same money twice.   

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2273878-why-did-my-refund-drop-when-i-entered-another-w-2

[PokeLinkEB]

Seems to be the way it works. Kind of baffling really.