What-if Worksheet

[highschoolhank]

I'm trying to use the what-if worksheet to get a rough idea of the proportional tax liability for each of my wife and I who file MFJ.  I open the worksheet and check the MFJ vs MFS box but for many categories the number in the taxpayer and spouse columns is just an equal split of the MFJ total.  For example, interest, dividends, and capital gains are all split 50-50 even though the 1099s are specifically attributed to either taxpayer or spouse. The income that is appropriately attributed is wages, taxable IRA distributions, taxable pensions, and taxable social security.  Why aren't all income categories correctly attributed?

Also, is there some meaning to blue numbers on a tan background vs. black numbers on a white background?  Sometimes the coloration is the same for an entire row and sometimes there is a different coloration for taxpayer vs spouse?

[RobertB4444]

Married Filing Separately is a weird filing status.  You don't mention what state you're in but in a community property state when you file married filing separately you just cut all of the income in half and file two separate returns that are roughly equivalent.  

TurboTax has a tendency to do that automatically with the interest and dividends on that worksheet.  it's weird but you should be able to alter them if you need to.

I am not aware of any difference in the box colors effecting the numbers.  Afraid that may be a programmer question.

@highschoolhank 

[highschoolhank]

Thanks for the response.  I determined that the tan boxes can be altered but the white ones cannot,  so I was able to correctly apportion the entries that TT had simply split 50-50.  

[DawnC]

Here is a cheat sheet for the color codes in TurboTax.   You are correct about the yellow fields - those can be modified by the user; see last item on the chart below.    

What do all the different colors in Forms Mode mean?