My w2 included on line one my base pay and my commission. Should I have broken that out somehow on my return?

[MinhT · Accepted solution]

No, you do not need to separate base pay and commissions as they both are taxed exactly the same as ordinary income. You just enter the amount in box 1 of your form W-2 in the corresponding box in TurboTax.

[ajbsibo]

My base pay gets taxed around 20% and my big bonus checks get like 40% taken out. That’s not the same math being deducted?

[MinhT]

What you see on your paychecks is withholding taxes. As your commissions are larger than your regular paychecks, they have a larger percentage of withholding according to the IRS withholding tables. But when you report them on your tax return, all income (base pay and commissions) is taxed at the same rate. The larger withholding on your commissions will give you a larger refund.

[ajbsibo]

It’s so weird I put that first w2 in with the base plus commission job and the return made sense. That was 9 months at 62,000 income with about 30,000 of that number commission and the return was about 3700. Then I added the second job I had last year that was a salary position that paid 20,000. So with both jobs I was at about 81500 total income. Both were W2 and then the refund dropped to 1500 dollars. I just don’t understand why it would drop so much from adding another job?

[MinhT]

PLease read this TurboTax FAQ: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/3798403">https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/3798403</a>

[ajbsibo]

Could I sent you a copy of the return and have you look at it for me and see if I should amend it? I should have had one of you looked at it before I sent it in! What a dumb dumb

[MinhT]

We are not allowed to look at your return.

[ajbsibo]

How come my base pay is taxed around 20% and my big commission checks are taxed at around 40%. Makes no sense