topic Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer? in Credits and deductions

Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

rab135 — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:51:29 GMT

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?

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTax_Susan — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:13:38 GMT

Are you using TurboTax Desktop or TurboTax Online?

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer in the Desktop version?

rab135 — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:13:20 GMT

Desktop standard version.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTax_Susan — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:12:43 GMT

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.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

rab135 — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 02:44:49 GMT

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?

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxBrenda — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 12:52:26 GMT

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

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

nv8 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 19:41:25 GMT

1. Have gone through the easy step questions and do NOT see the option to share donations.

2. Cannot override on the Don sheet as I could in previous years.

HELP!

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxGinette — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:15:30 GMT

Please see the image below for steps to get back to the Donations by using the Find icon at the top right and entering donations which will bring you to the screen shown below. You can also go back to Donations by using the menu on the left as indicated with the arrows.

Thank you for choosing TurboTax.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

nv8 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:50:12 GMT

Oops...sorry.....was panicking....Forgot that to over ride i have to press F2.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxBrenda — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 21:20:04 GMT

Glad to hear you got it working 🙂

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

rab135 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 20:19:05 GMT

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.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

grubbbee — Mon, 05 May 2025 00:18:00 GMT

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...

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

grubbbee — Mon, 05 May 2025 01:58:56 GMT

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.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxBrenda — Tue, 06 May 2025 19:28:01 GMT

Thank you for your feedback—we appreciate it and will send this to our appropriate team.

Thank you for choosing TurboTax

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

rab135 — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:59:40 GMT

For years, I have used TurboTax (and before that, QuickTax) to do my taxes. For years now, I have been asking Intuit to do something about its faulty Charitable Donations Optimizer which simply doesn't work for those of us with large donation receipts. Worse, it fails to inform users that they stood to lose thousands of dollars of lost taxes due to its failure to correctly optimize the data given to it, Again, this year, I purchased the 2025 version in hopes that they might finally have fixed it. They have not. Nor is there adequate warning that if users trust the Optimizer, they could lose thousands of dollars by missing perfectly allowable deductions. The algorithm to fix this problem is very, very simple. This year, using the Optimizer, TurboTax had me owing $1,700 in taxes. By making some simple high/low manual calculations to adjust the way my charitable donations are handled, I was able to reduce that to $349 owing. About $1,350 saved!

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxAniqua — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 20:06:18 GMT

@rab135 We understand your concern, and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention again. We will forward your feedback to our development team, who will look into this.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

ArchieK — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 03:14:14 GMT

Yes, please fix this. I have used TurboTax for years, and this is the one issue that makes me question continuing. It is so much work to override this.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

rab135 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:45:48 GMT

Okay, here’s some good news on this front. I have, all these years, stayed with TurboTax because I felt these folks were the experts. My thinking was that if TurboTax couldn’t deal with this problem all these years, how could we expect the little guys to do it. But this year, after paying for and using this year’s TurboTax and being disappointed that they still haven’t fixed it, I decided to go the extra mile and try the free software provided by another supplier. To my surprise and delight that free software handled my donations perfectly without external prompting from me. The free program saved me the $1,350 I would have lost if I had trusted TurboTax’s Donations Optimizer.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

TurboTaxBrenda — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:47:43 GMT

@rab135 Thank you for your feedback. As previously mentioned by TurboTaxAniqua, our development team is now aware and will be looking into this issue as soon as possible.

Re: Can TurboTax staff fix the Donations Optimizer?

Louie — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 04:46:13 GMT

rab135,

What is the name of the program you used?

Like you and other users, I thought TurboTax was the absolute top tax software in Canada. I have used it since I had to drive to the developer's house to pick up the program floppies (yes, floppies) when it was called CanTax.

However, I am finding that they've fallen behind on many things, and the Charitable Donations Optimizer is just one example. In Alberta, there is an advantage to low-income users to split the first $200 between spouses. This problem has been identified for years, and if they can't make this simple fix, then it's time for me to move on.

Thanks