Turbotax is using the wrong income amount to calculate taxes.

[thetravelingstones]

Turbotax is calculating with "Total Income" vs "Taxable Income" on my tax return. I even opened another tax program to check it. How do I get Turbotax to fix their software? Sadly, I'm going to have to pay for another service if this isn't fixed.

[BillM223 · Accepted solution]

Are you saying that your "Total Income" on line 9 of the 1040 is the same as your Adjusted Gross Income on line 11, and is the same as your Taxable Income on line 15?

[VolvoGirl]

Yes please explain more.  Where are you seeing that?  It depends on what kind of income you have.  There are like 7 different ways to figure the tax.

See the IRS worksheet on 1040 page 36 for how the tax is figured.  Turbo Tax uses the same worksheet.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf

If you have capital gains or qualified dividends the tax 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.

[thetravelingstones]

No, they are not.  When I use my tax bracket calculation from my total income, line 9, I get very close to the "federal taxes you owe" amount listed on the federal review page.  When I use my tax bracket calculations from line 15, my taxable income, I get the same amount as I did using another software program to check it which is a significant difference.

[thetravelingstones]

Example: 

$2,055 plus 12% of the amount over $20,550. (from the table)

Take your taxable income, subtract the 20,550, multiply that by the 12% and add 2,055.

I get the taxes owed amount listed on turbotax when I use "total income" (line 9) and a completely different amount when using my taxable income (line 15).  

[thetravelingstones]

I do not have gains or dividends.  

[thetravelingstones]

Thanks Bill for asking about the line numbers!  I opened the PDF to start looking over every line, when I noticed something wasn't right, and then went back to my W2 entry to find that I had Box 12 Code marked incorrectly!  

Problem solved!