Why TurboTax 2017 did not transfer my 65 year old spouse's Basic Personal Amount on Line 301 to me as my income is higher than hers.

[TurboTaxJennifer · Accepted solution]

The Age amount (line 301) transfer from your spouse to you is not automatic if you're the higher earning spouse. Your spouse's need for the credit is calculated first. If your spouse's income is not high enough to need the credit, the unused amount (either the full credit or partial credit depending on your spouse's income) is then transferred to you on line 326.

You may view the calculation of transfers on Schedules 2 & 5 of your PDF copy of your return.

[paul-bellamy]

Hi TurboTaxJennifer, thanks for the prompt response...However, Standard Turbo Tax 2017 only Prints Schedule 1 in both our 2017 Tax returns...There is no Schedule 2 or 5 shown in our copy of the 2017 Tax return...We chose to file as a couple...and further research shows that as Charitable Contributions are usually reported by the Person with the Higher Income... so we thought it should apply to the Spouse of the 65 year old as their Basic Personal Amount, in order to be beneficial to us as a couple....TurboTax claims or promises to maximize our returns...so we thought this would have been considered in the instance....Two Questions: #1, Should we consider amending our 2017 Tax return to address this or could TurboTax help us with this ? Much appreciated with thanks.

Paul

[TurboTaxJennifer]

Hi Paul.
Whether to request an adjustment or not really comes down to the difference. My advice is to try it both ways - assigning the donations to each spouse and viewing the difference. Once you've established the benefit, you can of course choose to make the adjustment.
TurboTax does optimize donations between spouses and gives you the option to claim using the optimized calculation. It's important to note that if additional information is entered after the optimization calculation is made, the result may be different. Always a good idea to revisit donations as one of your last steps before filing.
Schedules 2 & 5 should be available when printing the PDF version of your returns (not the print to mail version - it only delivers the CRA-required format). If you're having trouble printing the PDF, please contact our phone support team for assistance using this link: https://turbotax.community.intuit.ca/questions/1467699