Bracket Buster!

[JimmyTheMan]

In the Tax Planner you to add how much is needed to put into an IRA or equivalent to move tax bracket down. How can you not have that?????

[Accountant-Man]

IRA maximum is $7,000(or $8,000.) How much is taxable income above the next lower bracket, by $7,000 maximum.

How hard is that? You just need to know the brackets.

[JimmyTheMan]

I can only hope that your goal is to help automate the process while reminding tax preparers of options to help their clients. Don't you think more preparers would like to know an option to lower the bracket is available? Lets pretend it's March or April. Do you think it would help then? I've tried to test the system and sometimes the number doesn't lower the bracket. Wouldn't it be nice if the system said if you add exactly $2345 to an IRA it would lower your bracket to a certain %? The easier the better. This is easy for you guys. Make it easy for us! 

[Accountant-Man]

"Lowering the bracket" isn't really the goal. Rather, contributing enough money into a deductible IRA that SAVES the most income tax before contributing MORE saves LESS.

How about this: the taxable income is $8,250 over the bottom rung of the 24% bracket(Single, $100,526); therefore, putting $7,000 into the IRA saves 24% of the $7,000, but it does not "lower the bracket." Any other income will be taxed at 24%.

Better example: the taxable income is $4,250 over the bottom rung of the 24% bracket; therefore, putting $4,250 into the IRA saves 24% of the $4,250, but adding $2,750 more to the IRA saves only 22% of the extra $2,750.

{Not counting any changes due to the lowering of AGI with the IRA.}

[JimmyTheMan]

I guarantee you there are many instances where a donation to an IRA would make a HUGE difference in the tax bracket. I guarantee you less than half of the preparers check it. Your clients AGI is at $94,500 for 2024 and a $201 IRA contribution lowers their bracket from 22% to 12% Thats a $945 LOWER TAX FOR A $201 contribution that you actually get back one day. This is super easy for you guys to fix and implement. The easier you make it for us the better we look and the better we feel about the Intuit product!!!!

[IRonMaN]

I think you might want to double check your math on that by comparing your dollar amounts to the actual tax tables.