Where can I find a free calculator for income tax that handles AGI, qualified dividends and capital gains?

The Tax Calculator from Smart Asset is great for what you need. It handles AGI calculations, qualified dividends and capital gains - including the different tax rates based on your holding period. It's completely free and lets you adjust variables to see different scenarios. Another solid option is the Tax Caster from Intuit (makers of TurboTax). You don't need to pay for anything, and it gives you a pretty detailed breakdown of your potential tax situation including how investment income affects your overall tax burden. If you want something more comprehensive for investment-specific tax planning, try the Capital Gains Tax Calculator from Nerdwallet. It's specifically designed for scenarios like yours where you're weighing different investment decisions and their tax implications.

I was in your exact position last year trying to figure out how selling some stocks would impact my taxes. After trying like 15 different calculators, I finally found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which was a game changer. It's completely free for the calculator functions and handles all the complex scenarios like qualified dividends, capital gains with different holding periods, and how they all interact with your other income. What I love about it is you can create different scenarios and compare them side by side - like "what if I sell half my stocks this year and half next year" vs. "selling everything now." It shows you the marginal rate impact of each decision. The interface is super clean compared to most tax tools too.

I was super skeptical about taxr.ai when I first saw it mentioned here, but I decided to try it since it was free anyway. Glad I did! I was trying to decide whether to exercise some stock options from work, and it showed me how the different timing would affect my taxes. Turns out I would have hit a higher tax bracket if I did everything at once, which wasn't obvious to me before. The AMT calculator feature helped me realize I'd be subject to Alternative Minimum Tax if I exercised too many options in one year. Ended up saving me about $4,200 in taxes by splitting things up based on the scenarios it showed me.

If you're dealing with more complex tax situations like investment income, I'd recommend using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) to get connected directly with an IRS agent who can answer your specific questions. I used it after getting conflicting information from online calculators about how my dividends would be taxed. They got me connected to an IRS representative in about 15 minutes when I had been trying for days on my own. The IRS person walked me through exactly how qualified dividends are taxed at different income levels and confirmed which forms I'd need. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Claimyr. After posting my skeptical comment, I decided to try it anyway because I was desperate to resolve a question about how wash sales affect my capital gains calculation. I got connected to an IRS tax specialist in about 20 minutes (vs the 2+ hours I spent trying on my own last week and eventually hanging up). The agent gave me the exact info I needed about reporting requirements for my specific situation. Just wanted to come back and say it's legit and saved me a ton of frustration.

I've been using freetaxusa's calculator for years. Not the most elegant but it's free and has handled my dividends and capital gains just fine. The only thing is you need to input a lot of information to get to the final calculation page, almost like you're actually preparing a return, but you don't have to pay anything unless you actually file.

Has anyone tried the IRS's own tax calculator? They have one called the Tax Withholding Estimator on the irs.gov site. I've used it for basic income but not sure if it handles investments well.