Why does Turbotax not balance taxable income in a joint filing?

[prinsze]

Should our taxable income not be balanced, through pension allocation,  to be in the lowest tax brackets.

[prinsze]

Thanks to Leanne & Delphision for responses. I need to expand on the problem.  My income is about $70,000 and wife's about $50,000. Turbotax moves (through auto calc.) $20,000 of pension to my wife so that her taxable income is now $20,000 greater than mine - 50 vs 70.  This does not make sense. They should be 60 vs 60 to get lowest overall tax bracket. When I manually transfer $10,000, Turbotax shows a larger overall payable tax?????

[Delphision]

Did anything else get moved?  The software will bump medical to the other spouse depending on what money or deductions go to which spouse.  Everything is so tied together any more it is difficult to say what is happening.

[Delphision · Accepted solution]

Not always.  It does allocate eligible pensions, not all are eligible, to arrive at the best result for the couple.  One person might pay a bit more and the other get a larger refund which works out in a savings of tax between the two of you.  The taxes related to the pensions are also transferred, so a pension with no income tax taken off will result in a different allocation than expected.