Tax Bracket in the Tax Planner

[fiscalis]

See the image below of the Lacerte Tax Planner Summary page. Note that the tax bracket doesn't shift to the 22% bracket until the taxable income is pushed to $150,260. It should shift at $94,301. Am I missing something? If so, please educate me. What does it take to get this fixed? It works correctly on the tax tables page.

[sjrcpa]

How much qualified dividends and/or long term capital gains are in that AGI?

[rbynaker]

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@sjrcpa wrote:

How much qualified dividends and/or long term capital gains are in that AGI?

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I was always pretty good at guessing how many M&Ms are in the jar? 🙂  I'll guess 56,000.

[fiscalis]

You're VERY close. The total is $56,002. OK. THANKS. So, why doesn't the software make the same allowances and corresponding information on the Tax Table page under the Tax tab? To investigate further, I made a totally new case starting from scratch for a married couple filing MFJ. The income entries consist only of an IRA distribution in the amount of $126,599 which, minus the standard deduction leaves us with taxable income of $94,299 ($1 below the max 12% threshold). At this point, the percentages all look fine. However, there's a full $25 of income missing from the total income shown in the 12% bracket (71,075) which when added to the 10% bracket amount of $23,200, actually totals $92,275, $24, short of what should be there. And, THEN, when I add $1 to the IRA distribution, which takes the total taxable income to $94,300, $23,200 is shown in the 10% bracket and $71,100 is shown in the 15% bracket, AND another $25 comes out of nowhere and is thrown into the 22% bracket for a LISTED total of $94,325 when the software shows a total taxable income on that page of $94,300, and the SUMMARY page shows us in the 22% bracket when we've yet to enter it.

Clearly there seem to be some calculation issues at play here. What do you think?

THANK YOU!

[rbynaker]

I'm not even a Lacerte user but just a guess, if you work through the QDLTCG Worksheet you'll end up looking up the non-QDLTCG income in the tax table instead of using the rate schedule (because it's under $100K).  If $1 jumps you from one row to the next the tax cost at that level is $11 (22% of the $50 spread).  It makes for some weird math that doesn't align with common sense (i.e. donate $1 to charity, save $11 on taxes).

Rick