I noticed on my federal return that my taxes owed are more than my tax liability minus my taxes paid. Why would that be the case?

[DoninGA]

On your Form 1040 is Line 33 more than Line 24?  If so, Line 24 is subtracted from Line 33 and you will have an overpayment of the tax payments for a tax refund reported on Line 34.

If line 24 is more than Line 33 then you will have taxes owed reported on Line 37. 

Also, you may have an overpayment penalty reported on Line 38 and that would increase your taxes owed or decrease your tax refund.

[BillM223]

Very often, the confusion is caused by the last thing that DoninGA referred to: an underpayment penalty on line 38 (1040), which is added to line 37 seemingly out of sequence.

If this is not the problem, please tell us what the values are lines 24, 33, and 34-38.