Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

[rab135]

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.

[TurboTaxBrenda]

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