How to do a rough estimate?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
December 9, 2024
1 reply
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Hi, I have TurboTax 2024 and many previous years' versions....my question is this. I would like to do a "quick" entry of my basic data into turbo tax, to see if I should make some charitable deductions or other transactions to lower my tax bill - before the end of the year.

I know my dividends, cap gains, ordinary income. I can make some basic estimates on deductions, charitable deductions, etc. I just want a simple way to enter this data with some "guesstimates", to see what the tax bill looks like, and then I can change numbers to see what I am able to do before Dec 31. I don't want to go through all the Q&A normally needed to enter exact data - I don't have 1099s yet - and I noticed some parts of Turbo Tax 2024 aren't even ready.

I could even do this using Turbo Tax 2023 to get a very rough idea where my taxes stand. I have versions still installed on my computer back to 2016.

I am thinking there might be a table/form with final numbers in one of my older tax files (or create a new one), that I could use to just change or type numbers into, that was not connected to interview questions, downloads, etc.

Is there a simple way to do this with any version of Turbo Tax? Thanks.

Best answer by rjs

Since you have the desktop TurboTax software, try using the What-If Worksheet in forms mode.

Click the Forms icon at the top right.
Click the Open Form icon at the top left.
In the search box type "what" (without the quotes).
The What-If Worksheet will appear in the window. Click on it, then click the Open Form button at the bottom of the window.
Click Help Center for instructions for using the form.

You can do this in the 2024 software, or use the 2023 software and check the box to use 2024 tax rates. If you use the 2023 software you can check a box to copy all the figures from your 2023 tax return.

The What-If Worksheet is not available in TurboTax Online.

rjsAnswer

Employee

Since you have the desktop TurboTax software, try using the What-If Worksheet in forms mode.

Click the Forms icon at the top right.
Click the Open Form icon at the top left.
In the search box type "what" (without the quotes).
The What-If Worksheet will appear in the window. Click on it, then click the Open Form button at the bottom of the window.
Click Help Center for instructions for using the form.

The What-If Worksheet is not available in TurboTax Online.

Don-TTAuthor

Thank you, I'll try this out and report back!!!

Don-TTAuthor

@rjs I played around with the What-If Form last night. I looked at the Help writeup to see if it answered a couple of questions, and I didn't find the answer. Do you know the answers to these?

Maybe I don't understand the underlying gist of how its used - but I started adding revised figures into the second column (I used a copy of my 2023 form, checked the box for 2024 tax rates). As I got down the list, some of the boxes I could not type into? But they could have been sum-total types of boxes, and there is no way that I saw to generate a calculated value for those boxes?

I was under the impression I just type numbers into the boxes of a column and then it calculates taxes etc. What generates the taxes and any other boxes that need to have calculations? Or am I totally off-base in how I am using it?

Thanks!