I observe behavior whenever we file our taxes that I do not understand. It's not that I think TurboTax is making a mistake, I am just wondering why it behaves this way.
Let's say these are our (made up) details:
Spouse A income: 100k
Spouse A withholding: 10k
Spouse B income: 30k (50k with 20k into a 403b)
Spouse B witholding: 4k
When I enter all this data, I see the following behavior
After entering Spouse A first I see a 4k refund After entering Spouse B the 4k refund goes away and I see we owe 1k
This doesn't make sense to me because Spouse B is withholding a higher percentage of their income so, I would think, when we combine all the income together, Spouse B would increase the refund, not decrease it.
But, like I said, my assumption here is that I just don't understand something.