A reader suggested that I release my tax calculator for retirees under a separate title because it has outgrown its original purpose.
I initially made a calculator only for the taxable portion of Social Security benefits. Many questions from readers made me realize that they were also looking for the resulting taxes from their Social Security benefits and other income. I added the tax calculation and expanded the scope over time. It’s now a full-fledged tax calculator for retirees.
Why Another Tax Calculator
There are many tax calculators online already. However, most of them only look backward, not forward. The 2027 tax brackets will be known by September 2026, but most online tax calculators don’t update to 2027 until well into 2027. Because I track tax brackets even before the IRS officially publishes them, my tax calculator will cover next year sooner than any other, giving you an early start on planning.
TurboTax desktop software has a What-If Worksheet for planning (I wrote about it in Tax Planning with TurboTax What-If Worksheet). It works to some degree, but it’s missing some important pieces. Notably, it doesn’t include the ACA premium tax credit for retirees not yet on Medicare. Nor does it include the effect on IRMAA for retirees on Medicare. The popular Dinkytown 1040 Tax Calculator and its licensed clones on AARP and other websites don’t calculate the ACA premium tax credit or the effect on IRMAA either.
Other tax software programs, such as FreeTaxUSA, don’t even do 2026 until November, when they release the 2026 version. The early releases are often still incomplete at that time. In general, tax software is intended for filing, not for planning.
AI is quite good these days, but as you see in Which AI Calculates Taxes Correctly?, a tax calculator is faster and more accurate than AI if you know which one to use.
Some niche tax calculators update early and are more complete. Case Study Spreadsheet and Excel1040 are two good ones I know. I wrote about Case Study Spreadsheet in Roth Conversion with Social Security and Medicare IRMAA. Both Case Study Spreadsheet and Excel1040 require more upfront setup, though. The calculator I made is less comprehensive but is easier to get the result quickly and accurately.
Why Retirees
I specifically made this tax calculator only for retirees.
Retirees’ taxes are simpler. They don’t have deductions and credits related to children and education, such as the Child Tax Credit, Child and Dependent Care Credit, American Opportunity Credit, or the Student Loan Interest Deduction. A general-purpose tax calculator meant for everyone forces retirees to wade through many irrelevant inputs. I believe in Less Is More. A more streamlined calculator is better than a cluttered one.
Meanwhile, retirees have a greater need for a tax calculator to set up withholding and estimated tax payments. They also have more control over the sources of their income. Taxable income can come from IRA withdrawals, capital gains, or Roth conversions. A tax calculator is helpful to compare different approaches.
Tax Planning What-If’s
Besides getting a bottom-line number to set tax withholding and estimated tax payments, a good way to use this tax calculator is to plan for what-if’s with A/B comparisons. Enter your income composition one way and save the results as Scenario A. Alter some inputs and save the results again as Scenario B. Open the saved Scenario A and Scenario B side-by-side and compare. You can save an unlimited number of scenarios:
- What if I withdraw more from the IRA instead of realizing capital gains?
- What if I increase Roth conversions?
- What if I sell from taxable investments?
- What if I receive less interest?
- What if I work a little?
Whatever comes to mind, you can see how it affects your federal income tax.
What’s Included
This calculator covers pretty much everything relevant to retirees:
- Muni bond interest
- Qualified dividends and long-term capital gains
- Rentals, interest, non-qualified dividends, short-term capital gains
- Incidental self-employment
- Wages, pension, IRA withdrawals, Roth conversions
- Qualified Business Income deduction
- Net Investment Income Tax
- Above-the-line deductions
- Standard Deduction
- Cash donations made directly to charities
- Senior Deduction
- Auto loan interest deduction
- Itemized deductions
- Non-cash donations and donations to Donor-Advised Funds
- State and local taxes (SALT) paid
- Medical expenses
- Mortgage interest
- Medicare IRMAA
I picked these for their relevance to retirees. Everything included is updated to the 2025 Trump tax law. The less-used itemized deductions and ACA tax credit are collapsed by default. You can easily skip those if you don’t have them, but you can still dive in when you do.
What’s Not Included
Besides things not relevant to retirees, this calculator doesn’t calculate these items:
- Self-employment income plus wages exceeding the Social Security wage base
- Self-employment retirement contributions and health insurance deduction
- Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
- Foreign Tax Credit
This calculator covers incidental self-employment income, but it doesn’t cover more complicated scenarios, such as when you have both self-employment income and W-2 wages, the sum of the two exceeds the Social Security wage base ($184,500 in 2026), and limits your self-employment tax. Nor does it cover making retirement contributions based on self-employment income to SEP-IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, or solo 401(k) plans, or taking a self-employment health insurance deduction.
AMT and Foreign Tax Credit are also more complicated, and many retirees don’t have them. Collecting inputs to calculate them would make the calculator more cluttered. If you have complicated self-employment, AMT, or Foreign Tax Credit, please use a different tax calculator.
In addition, the calculator only calculates the federal income tax. It doesn’t calculate state and local taxes.
Calculator
The calculator does both 2025 and 2026. You can double-check the 2025 results against your filed 2025 tax return. When you see that the calculator is correct for 2025, you’ll have confidence that it’s also correct for 2026. I’ll update it to include 2027 as soon as I have a good handle on the 2027 tax brackets.
This calculator works better on a desktop computer.
Notes
Here are some notes for how the calculator expects to see various numbers.
Social Security
Enter the total gross Social Security benefits for the calendar year (not monthly) before any Medicare premium deductions. If you’re married filing jointly, include the total gross Social Security benefits for the calendar year from both spouses. If you start or stop benefits in the middle of a year, enter the total benefits expected for that year.
Dividends
Dividends can be qualified or non-qualified. As reported on Form 1040, ordinary dividends are the total of both qualified and non-qualified dividends.
Qualified dividends go into the “Qualified dividends and long-term capital gains” field. The difference between ordinary dividends and qualified dividends is non-qualified dividends. They go to the next field, “Other investment income.” 199A dividends from REITs are included as a part of non-qualified dividends. They go into the “199A dividends” field.
Capital Loss
Capital loss should be used to offset capital gains first. If there’s still capital loss left after offsetting all capital gains, up to $3,000 of it goes into the “Other investment income” field as a negative amount.
Rentals
Rental income goes into the “Other investment income” field. It should be the net rental income after all expenses and depreciation. This calculator doesn’t cover the case when it’s a net loss after expenses and depreciation.
Tax Withholding
If you have tax withheld from wages, IRA distributions, Roth conversions, or any other source, use the gross amount before tax withholding. Tax withholding is a prepayment against your total tax for the year. It affects the residual amount you’ll pay at tax filing time, but it doesn’t affect your total tax number itself.
QCDs
Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) go directly from your IRA to charities. They don’t count as your income. Nor do you receive a tax deduction for QCDs. Exclude any QCDs in the calculator. Only include IRA distributions that aren’t QCDs.
ACA Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan
If you’re on ACA health insurance, the government uses the full price of the Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan (SLCSP) to calculate the Premium Tax Credit you’re eligible for.
One way to get that number is to go back to your state’s marketplace (or healthcare.gov if your state doesn’t have a separate one). They usually have a “browse plans” option that doesn’t require logging in. Enter your zip code, household size, your age(s) as of 12/31 last year, and a very high income, like $300,000. That will give you full-price plans. Filter for Silver plans only and sort by premium from lowest to highest. Take the second lowest number. The calculator needs that number to calculate the subsidy.
Another way is to use the KFF subsidy calculator. Again, enter your state and zip code, household size, your age(s) as of 12/31 last year, and a very high income, like $300,000. The KFF calculator shows you a price for a Silver plan. That’s the full price of the second-lowest cost Silver plan.
Bug Reports and Feature Requests
Please include the full output in the comments if the calculator gives you unexpected results. Please use the contact form if you aren’t comfortable posting numbers in public comments.
Please leave a comment if you have a suggestion for improvement. I apologize in advance for not wanting to make the inputs more granular in this version of the calculator. Making a streamlined calculator for retirees is a guiding objective. I want this calculator to be easy to use for 99% of retirees. I’m thinking of creating a separate, longer version of this calculator to cover things that apply to only a small percentage of retirees. The additional inputs and granularities can go into the longer version.
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William says
American manufactured automobile loan interest under Big Beutiful Tax Bill?
Harry Sit says
That’s a good one. I’ll think about whether it’s worth a separate line in the calculator because its applicability is quite narrow (see Deductible Car Loan Interest in the New 2025 Trump Tax Law).
Harry Sit says
I added the car loan interest deduction to the calculator. Thank you for the suggestion!
KD says
Awesome calculator! Just the one I wanted. Can you please show ACA MAGI and if the percentage is below 400% of FPL? I love that I can see the interplay of SS, IRA withdrawal/Roth conversion and ACA together without the other distracting stuff.
Harry Sit says
Happy to hear you liked it! That makes sense. I added the MAGI for ACA health insurance and the percentage of FPL. The percentage is helpful if you’re targeting reduced deductible and copays.
KD says
Thank you for adding it. This is so valuable I can’t thank you enough. I know you will get additional requests to add features. Is there a way to archive this version? For us this perfect.
Harry Sit says
I’m not sure how I can create archived versions and still keep them all updated from year to year. I’ll do my best to resist the temptation to add more inputs. I can add more to the outputs to aid decision making, but I’ll try to minimize the inputs. Case Study Spreadsheet already exists for more complex cases.
Eric says
Nice !
I have two suggestions, one general and one for me 😉
General: Include IRMAA. It pops up all too often for those thinking about Roth conversions. Your calculator can be a quick way to evaluate Roth conversion rate
Second: include CG loss carryover
Harry Sit says
I’ll think of a way to present IRMAA. The exact dollar impact depends on the Medicare premium rates, which won’t be known for another year. Maybe I can use the current rate as an estimate.
The capital gains numbers should be net of the capital loss carryover. Excess loss up to $3,000 can be used to offset income on the Other Income line.
Diane says
I just ran it and compared to my own projections. I’m off by less than $80, possibly due to interest income. This is great, thanks!
Erik says
I plugged my 2025 # into your calculator and the tax liability matches what I submitted to the IRS using freetaxusa. thanks, looking forward to the 2027 update for planning purposes.
NK says
Amazing calculator! I have been using a spreadsheet to calculate my 2026 tax projections and it matches to your estimate to the dollar! I am an early retiree on ACA and controlling my MAGI to get a decent ACA Premium tax credit.
One request – Can you separate the rental income from interest income and non qualified income? Rentals also come with depreciation and it deserves a separate line, I think..
Harry Sit says
Only include rental income net of expenses and depreciation.
Steven W says
Thank you Harry,
Especially for the Schdl A items and the pesky NIIT.
AC says
Do you think this would be accurate enough for quarterly estimate payments? Always a struggle to get those right.
Harry Sit says
Yes, helping with quarterly estimated tax payments is one motivation for creating this calculator. Try it with your 2025 tax return. It should match to the dollar. Then do 2026.
Robert A. says
Thank you — great to have this additional tool for tax planning!
The explanatory text says that most retirees don’t have deductible contributions to HSA. Maybe that should say most “Medicare-eligible retirees.” My guess is that pre-Medicare retirees that have ACA plans DO contribute to an HSA. HSAs are compatible with all of the Bronze ACA plans.
Harry Sit says
Thank you for calling it out. I’ll remove that commentary. Most retirees don’t have the other items listed but many on ACA plans do contribute to the HSA.
Sharon says
Thank you very much for this calculator! When I use the calculator, my AGI, itemized deductions, and QBI deduction all agree with my 2025 tax return. However, my 2025 federal income tax in your calculator is approximately $4180 more than what my return shows. On reflection, I realize that $3845 of this amount is due to the foreign tax credit. That leaves $335. And then I see that your calculator shows $5844 in Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT), whereas my return has only $5509 in NIIT. Exactly a $335 difference. Any ideas why there’s this difference? Again, thank you so much for the calculator!
Harry Sit says
The calculator computes NIIT from the lesser of (A) excess of AGI minus a threshold – $200k single/$250k MFJ; or (B) total investment income from these two lines in the calculator:
– Qualified dividends and long-term capital gains
– Other investment income (rentals, interest, non-qualified dividends, short-term capital gains, …)
I’m guessing that your tax return allocated some state income tax as expenses against NIIT on Line 9b of Form 8960. The calculator doesn’t do that. I can add it, but I’ll have to ask for more inputs, which goes against the goal of keeping this streamlined for the 99%.
Susan says
Thanks. Very useful and clearly presented. I normally use Dinkytown to do my projections. I like that you break out the section 199A dividends/QBI deduction, which I haven’t figured out how to enter on Dinkytown.
This is helpful for determining how much to withhold from my remaining RMDs. Also, looking at my AGI, I may increase the amount of a QCD. I’m on the borderline for an IRMAA increase. I may cross the border if my dividends increase more than I projected.
Thanks for all your posts. Avid reader, first time I left a comment.
Eric says
Harry wrote:
“I’ll think of a way to present IRMAA.”
Cool.
Do you need anything other than the mAGI from 2 years ago ?
It might be cool to open a toggle that has the IRMAA income brackets for the applicable year, and an instruction for the user to pick one. I don’t know if people remember their exact mAGI, but they may be able to ballpark
Harry Sit says
I added a small paragraph at the end for IRMAA. The calculator looks forward. It tells you where you’ll land in another two years. It can only be an estimate because the exact future IRMAA brackets and Medicare premiums aren’t available today.
chris says
Other Income field would include just the TAXABLE PORTION of any IRA distributions. (not any QCDs you did direct to charities). And let’s hope custodians get compliant with the new 1099R forms which are [supposed to] split out QCD distributions from regular / normal / taxable distributions.
Harry Sit says
That’s correct. Non-taxable distributions are not income.
Sharon says
I looked at my 2025 Form 8960 and your guess is right: some state income tax has been allocated as expenses against NIIT on Line 9b. If I disregard the Line 9b amount and multiply the amount on Line 8 (Total investment income) by .038, I get $5730, an amount that’s much closer to $5844.
John Haas says
Harry,
This is GREAT! And so glad you were quickly able to add the IRMAA calculation and especially the text regarding how much room. May want to include similar text for tax brackets (ordinary and possibly preferred).
I know you have made challenging tradeoffs regarding simplicity & we appreciate that. But please consider a future modification that adds drop-down lists (similar to your itemized deduction area) for several areas, especially “Other Investment Income” and “Other Income”. My reason is that this would make it more functional for “what-if” scenario planning.
Thanks again!
John
Joe A says
some of us, are not tax experts, my 2025 AGI on the 1040 doesn’t match your calculator no matter what I do . Why not just include the 1040 line item numbers. IMHO.
qualified div’s matches, but Taxable Interest and Ordinary Dividends don’t
for 2025 I have no LTCG but I do have.
where to input capital loss carryover,
Harry Sit says
I added some notes for where the numbers go. Hope that helps.
joe says
in the case study spreadsheet & yours , I see no line for ordinary dividends, so I put ordinary 3b) in qualified. and it matches my 1040 AGI .
I’m sure its correct on your part. However, find it confusing.
KD says
User error. Harry splits inputs into qualified and non qualified dividends. you are entering ordinary dividends which on tax returns is total of qualified + non qualified.
rj says
Nice tool! Why do I get “$NaN in additional ACA premium tax credit”? I’m looking to see how low I can drop my income to get the premium.
Harry Sit says
NaN means “Not a Number.” What were your inputs in the ACA related fields after you checked the ACA box? Please send them to me via the contact form if you don’t want to post them here.
Harry Sit says
I fixed the problem with NaN. Please refresh and try again. Thank you for telling me.
Eric says
If there is not an obvious illegal character like a letter or dollar sign, be sure there is no inadvertent space
rj says
Harry, thanks for fixing the NaN problem. It does appear to be fixed! Here’s a test case that showed the issue:
Tax Year: 2026
Filing Status: MFJ
Investment Income: – Other: 90,000
Above the line deductions: 9750
Cash donations: 3000
ACA health insurance: Yes
– Household size: 2
– State of residence: Lower 48
– Full price of the policy chosen: 1856
– Net price after the subsidy: 1856
– Full price of the SLCP: 1911
– Number of Months on ACA: 12
… so the results show that these numbers would get a $9,909 refund is that correct? Essentially the tax on such a person would be the $14,939 – $9,909 = $5,030 is that right?
It’d be nice to have the gross tax amount listed somewhere and that calculation displayed if possible.
Harry Sit says
I’m not surprised by the large refund when you don’t get any subsidy up front. ACA tax credit is a cliff. Because health insurance is so expensive, you either qualify for a large tax credit or you don’t qualify for anything. There’s no in between.
I’m showing one bottom-line number for setting withholding and estimated payments. Please tell me more about how the gross number can be helpful.
rj says
Good point Harry. After looking things over with the data that is displayed, I naturally wondered how much would I have to pay in taxes. So perhaps it’s just a curiosity type question.
john fitzsimons says
The social security benefits in the Calculator should be taxable benefits not gross.
Harry Sit says
Social Security should be the annual gross amount before any Medicare premium deductions. The calculator figures out the taxable amount and includes it in the AGI where applicable.
David Sharp says
This calculator is awesome. I have been using one I built one for myself, but this one is so much simpler.
One suggestion that could be to discriminate the tax breakdown to also include: 1. tax from the tables, 2. tax from qualified sources, and 3. tax from the NIIT which has already been listed. That would help illustrate the tax advantage of dividend paying stocks vs. bank interest or CD’s as a source of retirement income.
Dave H says
Thank you! One comment, it is my understanding that for 2026 (and beyond) charitable deductions for non-itemizers are Above-the-line. This seems for be set up for below the line. Will impact the calculated AGI.
Eric says
That deduction is a strange one. At least one CPA on the internet says it is described as “above the line,” but is unique in not reducing AGI.
I don’t think we will know for sure until the 2026 tax forms are released
Harry Sit says
It’s not above-the-line. It doesn’t require itemizing but it doesn’t lower the AGI. The link for that deduction in the results explains why.
Harry Sit says
Thank you all for the great feedback and suggestions. I updated the calculator to a new version. The outputs now include:
– How much your tax will change if your ordinary income increases by $100.
– How much your tax will change if your qualified dividends and long-term capital gains increase by $100.
– If your qualified dividends and long-term capital gains are currently taxed at 0%, how much more long-term capital gains you can realize without increasing your tax.
– If you’re on ACA health insurance, how close you are to losing or receiving Premium Tax Credit, and what’s at stake.
– If you’ll be on Medicare in two years, where you will likely land in terms of IRMAA.
These additional insights will help with tax planning beyond a single number for tax withholding and estimated tax payments.
KD says
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you Harry!
Chuck says
Hi …thanks for your work on this calculator! For my ACA calculation, live in PA, I’m only showing $50k in total income, from social security, but calculator results are showing a repayment of almost entire ACA subsidy of $20k. This doesn’t seem to align with ACA guidelines? At what income level(s) do subsidies not get cut-off? Thanks, Chuck
Harry Sit says
Chuck – $50k taxable or $50k gross? Is your filing status married filing separately? Please copy/paste the full results. ACA subsidies go by Modified Adjusted Gross Income (AGI + untaxed Social Security + muni). The cutoff is at 400% of the Federal Poverty Level.
Fred says
Thank you. My suggestion for the calculator is that it would be great to not have to combine all sources of income. For example, I have a pension, take IRA distributions and do Roth Conversions. Since I can control two of those components, being able to see how each part affects my taxable income would be an excellent update.
Harry Sit says
When different sources are lumped into a single field, it means they have the same effect on your federal income tax. If all three components add up to $34,567 and you’d like to see how withdrawing another $10,000 from your Traditional IRA will affect your taxes, just enter $34,567 and save the report. Bump that number to $44,567 and save again. Compare the two reports. It doesn’t matter whether the increase comes from a pension, IRA distributions, Roth conversions, or any combination.
MH says
Calculator is great! Thanks
Scott N says
Thanks Harry! I entered the same 2026 numbers as I have in the “Case Study Spreadsheet”, and I get the same results from both, including marginal tax rates. The only advantage I now see for CSS is the graph showing marginal/overall tax rates for various income increases, which is especially helpful for determining Roth conversions. Great job!
Marvin says
Before I embark on entering information into the calculator, how are Qcd’s handled/entered?
Harry Sit says
QCDs are not income. You exclude them. You only enter the IRA distributions that count as your income, including any tax withholding you elect. If $30,000 comes out of your IRA and $20,000 of the $30,000 goes to charities as QCDs, you enter $10,000 in Other Income. You still enter $10,000 even if you choose 30% tax withholding and only receive net $7,000.
John Snider says
I got the exact same 2026 income tax as Quicken Tax Planner. Only difference was rental sales and recaptured depreciation (taxes as ordinary income up to 25%). It would be nice to have at the end of each category something like: Other investment income….(ordinary income tax rate); and Qualified dividends…(LTCG tax rate). That would make it easier to put different money into each bucket. Our income from Quicken Tax planner groups dividends together (ordinary div and qualified dividend inc, so have to subtract out QDI to put into field, but then add capital gains into same field as QDI, and ordinary div with rental income. I just grouped like income together in different categories.
Julie says
Thank you! I appreciate the simplicity of using this, versus the Case Study Spreadsheet.
For me, the only thing that might preclude me from using this is that the Self-Employment health insurance deduction isn’t factored in, unless there’s a way I could enter my data to simulate that?
I’m not sure whether adding that would be complicated, but if it was included I think I’d switch to this straightforward tool. Great for most people!
Jill says
My MAGI is about $114000. Single, over 65. The senior deduction for singles doesn’t totally phase out until $175,000 yet the calculator says I don’t qualify for any. Dinkytown allows me about $3600 of the deduction.
Harry Sit says
I entered single, 65+, with $114,000 AGI. Here are the results:
Your 2026 federal income tax is approximately $14,994.
This is calculated from a taxable income of $92,190:
+ $0 Qualified dividends and long-term capital gains
+ $0 Other investment income
+ $114,000 Other income
= $114,000 AGI
– $18,150 standard deduction
– $3,660 senior deduction
– $0 charitable contribution deduction
– $0 QBI deduction
– $0 auto loan interest deduction
Please be sure to check the “I’m 65+ by 12/31” box.
Marvin Barnes says
There seems to be some value in this calculator. However, I was only able to come to this conclusion after finding entries into the calculator were not accepted on my iPad, IOS version 17.7.1 in either the Safari or DuckDuckGo browsers, and switching to a Windows 10 machine. A note of restrictions would have been helpful.
Karen Storlie says
What a wonderful free resource! It would be great if you could add the self-employed health insurance deduction and solo 401K contributions. These benefits for 1099 income are very helpful for early retirees. I am able to deduct almost all of my income and still contribute 100% to Roth solo 401K. It makes a huge difference on my total tax bill.
Eric says
All schedule A deductions are treated the same, the so-called ‘below the line’ deductions. So just add the deductions that do not have an explicit line to a deduction amount that is also below the line.
Harry Sit says
I can work on adding an input for self-employment retirement contributions and the health insurance deduction, but this calculator can only take your word for it. Actually calculating the allowable retirement contributions and health insurance deduction will require different calculators.
Harry Sit says
Or maybe I should spin off a tax calculator for the self-employed. That way, retirees without self-employment won’t have to go through the complications.
Tom Andrews says
Harry, thanks so much for this tool!
I’m probably wrong about this, but for my situation in the “what if” section it says “if your ordinary income increases by $100, your tax will increase by about $30.” I think it should only be about $25. Here are my specifics:
2026 tax year, married filing jointly, both 65+, Social Security $24,708, Qualified dividends $7,600, Other investment income $29,012, Other income $93,100.
With an add’l $100 of ordinary income we would lose $12 of the senior deduction, so $112 of add’l taxable income @ 22% = $24.64. The social security and qualified dividend tax treatment wouldn’t change at this income level, so what am I missing? Thanks again!
Harry Sit says
Tom – The calculator shows a taxable income of $103,300 with your inputs, which consists of $95,700 in ordinary income and $7,600 in qualified dividends and long-term capital gains. The ordinary income is still in the 12% bracket in 2026, and a portion of the qualified dividends and long-term capital gains is still taxed at 0% (the rest is taxed at 15%). See 2026 Tax Brackets, Standard Deduction, Capital Gains, QCD.
Adding $100 in ordinary income increases the taxable income by $112 due to the senior deduction phaseout. This $112 is taxed at 12%, and it reduces the portion of your qualified dividends being taxed at 0% by $112. The combined effect increases your tax by $112 * 27% = $30.
Tom S says
This is excellent Harry – thank you!
One more tweak would be useful for me – allow self employment loss. Right now the field only allows positive numbers.
Harry Sit says
Tom S – Self-employment is a separate entry in this calculator to calculate the self-employment tax (one-half is deductible above the line) and the QBI deduction. You’re not going to get a negative self-employment tax or a negative QBI deduction when you have a self-employment loss. You can use the loss to offset some items in the “other income” field.
Tom Andrews says
Got it – thank you for explaining that so clearly. Appreciate all that you do for the individual investor.
Louis C says
Thank you for making this available!
A suggestion – in the output section, could you give some guidance on Roth conversions. For example “You could do a Roth conversion of up to $26,700 this year and still be in the 12% marginal bracket.”
Harry Sit says
It does that already. If your baseline shows that your tax goes up by $X for a $100 increase in ordinary income, it tells you how much more you can increase your income and stay at that marginal rate.