Our taxable income is 14,986 but the calculated tax is 1,363. According to the 2016 tax table, the tax is 1,498 as we are filing Married Jointly. Why the difference?

[VolvoGirl · Accepted solution]

It depends on what kind of income you have, if you have capital gains or qualified dividends the tax on line 44 is not taken from the tax table but is calculated separately from schedule D.  The tax will be calculated on the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet.  It does not get filed with your return.  In the online version you need to save your return as a pdf file and include all worksheets to see it.  

For the Desktop version you can switch to Forms Mode and open the worksheet to see it.  Click Forms in the upper right (upper left for Mac) and look through the list and open the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet.

[rjs]

The tax tables are only one of seven different methods that can be used to calculate the tax, depending on what is in your return. Your return must require one of the other methods. The  most common reason that you cannot use the tax tables is that you have capital gains or qualified dividends.

In the IRS instructions for Form 1040, look at the instructions for line 44, starting at the top of the right column on page 41. The seven methods are explained there. If you have a PDF of your tax return with all forms and worksheets, the Tax Smart Worksheet will be in the Smart Worksheets section near the end of the federal return. You can see which method TurboTax used by seeing which one of the 7 check boxes is checked in the Tax Smart Worksheet.

[ericslee88]

Thank you for the answer, but the irony is my online downloaded PDF 2016 return has only one Tax History report and none of the Form 4562 worksheet, Tax Smart worksheet, Sched E worksheet and Tax payment worksheet that we used to get.  Does it look like a program bug or something wrong with my account? Thanks in advance.

[SteamTrain]

yeah...the "all forms and worksheets" PDF download isn't working right now...that has been reported to the developers...they screwed up that PDF option sometime in the past couple weeks.  they usually implement software fixes on Wed or Thurs night....so try to get the full PDF again  (ALL forms and worksheets option) on a Friday.

BUT..as already noted.  If you received a 1099-DIV form with boxes 1a&1b filled in, or if you had a 1099-B for sales of stocks or bonds or mutual funds held long term...with gains on those sales....then your tax calculated will be lower than the tables.  Those two items are the most common situations resulting in a difference tax assessment

[rjs]

Regarding the PDF, see the FAQ at the following link.
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