Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
February 24, 2024
3 replies
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The "Charitable donation optimizer" does not work for couples who want to split their donations - except for the simplest of situations. It seems the optimizer is based on the misconception that it is always best to commit all the donations to one spouse in order to avoid the $200 lower credit bracket. However, this is definitely not the case for larger donors who need to distribute between spouses to lower taxes payable on both returns. TurboTax is an admirable application in most regards but the "Charitable donation optimizer" is an embarrassment to an otherwise great app. Is this something TurboTax staff could give a priority to in the next year's version?

Best answer by TurboTaxBrenda

Thanks, Susan. That’s very helpful to know. It is, though, a concern that users are not more clearly warned that the optimizer may provide solutions that result in them paying more taxes than they should. In my case, if I had accepted the software’s optimization, we would have paid nearly $2,000 more than we needed to. Calculating the optimum amounts and distributing between spouses does not seem to be complicated. Could you ask the development team to consider enhancing the optimizer to provide that option for next year?

Thank you for your feedback about the donation optimizer and yes we will bring your request forward to our engineers.

TurboTaxSusan

Are you using TurboTax Desktop or TurboTax Online?

rab135Author

Desktop standard version.

TurboTaxSusan

Yes, if you are using forms, TurboTax Desktop defaults to claiming all the donations on one return. However, you can over-ride the line that says "Amount claimed by your spouse or partner" on one of the spouses DON worksheet. This is one of the rare occasions where overriding will not stop you from NETFILEing. If you use EasyStep mode, it will actually ask you if you want to split the donations, and make the over-ride on the DON worksheet for you.

rab135Author

It is a year later and I am disappointed to see that TurboTax has still not addressed this issue for the new tax year. The logic for the algorithm is so simple that it amazes me that this significant company wouldn’t make the effort to protect its users from losing significantly from a poorly designed optimizer.

grubbbee

Bump.

Dear Turbotax. The only thing the Charitable Donations Optimizer has done for the past ten years for me is increase the amount of tax we have to pay. I agree with the original poster. Turbotax is fantastic mostly, but this is tool needs to be deleted entirely if it can't solve this most basic of problems.

1) In Alberta, the first $200 of donation gets a SIXTY PERCENT deduction. So with two spouses, basically the entire optimization algorithm, if you aren't carrying forward because you used up all your credits, is: Lower income spouse claims $200. Higher income spouse claims the rest, unless they are literally paying zero tax already.

2) As soon as I click Optimize, only to find this problem hasn't been fixed in over a decade, I now have to go return to the donations section in order to fix it. What a waste of time. Is this what I get for upgrading to premier?

Guys... what the heck? I have two words for you: C'mon...

grubbbee

At the end of the process, I also get a "Tax Saving Opportunity". This seems to make sense except in Alberta. It would be great if the optimizing and opportunity stuff in Turbotax could please be enhanced to handle the provincial exceptions.

(grubbbee): Both you and your spouse or common-law partner have claimed amounts for donations. It may be beneficial for one person to claim all of the donations. Consider allowing all the donations to be claimed on the higher income spouse or common-law partner's return.