Started a 2nd job in December and my tax refund suddenly dropped $1200 in TurboTax

This isn't a glitch - it's actually a common tax situation when you work multiple jobs. Here's what's likely happening: When you have one job, your employer withholds taxes assuming that's your only income. When you add a second job, that employer is also withholding taxes assuming their income is your only source. But your actual tax rate is based on your combined income from both jobs. The $870 from your second job pushed your total income higher, but the withholding from that job probably wasn't enough to cover the actual taxes owed on that additional income. That's why your refund dropped - you earned more but didn't have enough additional tax withheld to cover it. You can check this by looking at the "Tax" line on your return before and after adding the second W-2. The total tax you owe probably increased by more than the amount that was withheld from that second job.

I had almost the exact same thing happen to me last year! I tried using taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it saved me so much stress. You can upload your W-2s there and it breaks down exactly why your refund changed. The tool showed me that my second job didn't withhold nearly enough based on my actual tax bracket from my combined income. What I love is that it doesn't just tell you what went wrong, but also shows you how to fix it for next year. It recommended exactly how much extra I should have withheld from each paycheck to avoid this problem in the future.

Just wanted to follow up about taxr.ai - I tried it yesterday and it was exactly what I needed! It showed me that my state withholding was totally off because my second job wasn't accounting for my primary income. The tool gave me a customized W-4 form that I can give to both employers to fix this for next year. Honestly wish I had known about this earlier, would have saved me a lot of confusion!

If you think your tax situation is frustrating, try getting help from the IRS! I spent WEEKS trying to get through to someone about a similar multiple-job issue. After 9 attempts and hours on hold, I tried Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) and was shocked when they actually got me connected to an IRS agent in under 20 minutes. They have this demo video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c that shows exactly how it works. The IRS agent confirmed everything people are saying here - multiple jobs cause withholding problems because each employer calculates withholding separately. The agent walked me through how to adjust my W-4 to account for multiple income sources and avoid the surprise next year.

I need to eat my words about Claimyr. After my skeptical comment, I was still desperate to talk to someone at the IRS about my multiple W-2 issue, so I tried it. Got connected to an IRS rep in about 35 minutes which is INSANE compared to my previous attempts (gave up after 2+ hours multiple times). The agent confirmed exactly what everyone here said about withholding calculations with multiple jobs. She also helped me calculate exactly how much extra I should have withheld each paycheck to avoid this problem. Honestly, I'm still shocked it actually worked.

For future reference, whenever you start a second job mid-year, you should always adjust your W-4 withholding. There's a specific checkbox on the W-4 form for multiple jobs that helps account for this exact situation. Most people skip this section not realizing how important it is.

Has anyone tried using a different tax software? Sometimes TurboTax can be confusing with how it displays refund changes. I switched to FreeTaxUSA last year and found it was much clearer about explaining why my refund amount changed when adding forms.