How do I open Analysis for the right scenario?
Analysis explains the calculated results for one tax scenario.
Open the client's Planning → Taxes → Scenarios.
Choose the scenario in the scenario picker.
Select Analysis.
Before interpreting the results, open Inputs and confirm the scenario's tax year, state, filing status, income, deductions, credits, and payments. A scenario may contain both values calculated from Profile and amounts entered directly. A copied scenario can still use values calculated from Profile; copying does not freeze every source amount.
Return to Analysis after checking the inputs. Analysis is one page organized into Summary, Planning, and Details. Use its section navigation to reach the figures or estimates you need.
For creating, copying, and changing scenarios, see Creating and Comparing Tax Scenarios.
How do I move between Analysis sections?
In Planning → Taxes → Scenarios → Analysis, use the section list on a wide screen or the section dropdown in the scenario bar on a narrower screen. The dropdown shows the current section or Jump to section. Selecting an item scrolls to that section on the same page.
Choose Key figures for the summary or Tax mix for the tax breakdown, when available.
Under Planning, choose Estimated payments, Roth conversion, Items to review, or Threshold room, when available.
Under Details, choose the calculation you want to inspect, or Assumptions to review the calculation's limits.
The available items follow the selected scenario's inputs and results. A link to a specific Analysis section opens that section if it is available; it doesn't switch to a separate planning page.
What do the headline tax figures mean?
In Analysis → Key figures, the income and tax amounts describe different stages of the selected scenario's calculation. They are not interchangeable with amounts the client has paid.
Gross income includes modeled income before tax-return exclusions.
Taxable total income is the Form 1040-style income amount before adjustments, using taxable wages, taxable Social Security, and other taxable income.
Adjusted gross income reflects the modeled adjustments to income.
Federal taxable income reflects the deductions used in the federal calculation.
Federal return tax is federal tax before refundable credits and payments, including applicable Schedule 2 taxes.
Total tax combines the modeled federal, state, payroll, and other included tax amounts. It accounts for refundable credits but does not subtract withholding or estimated payments.
For example, entering additional federal withholding changes the payment calculation, not the underlying tax liability. Compare the same type of number when reconciling a paystub, filed return, or client estimate. See Why Do Taxes Paid or Projected Taxes Look Unexpected? for the payment checks.
How should I interpret the tax rates?
In Analysis → Key figures, a marginal rate describes a rate at the scenario's current income level, while an effective rate compares tax with the income base used by the calculation. Neither rate is the client's dollar tax bill.
The federal effective rate uses net federal tax after refundable credits divided by taxable total income. The combined effective rate uses Total tax divided by taxable total income. These rates can differ because the combined calculation includes additional tax components.
When assessing a proposed conversion, contribution, or income change, compare the dollar results of two scenarios. Multiplying a large change by the displayed marginal rate does not capture every deduction, credit, threshold, or other interaction. Creating and Comparing Tax Scenarios explains how to preserve the starting assumptions and review the resulting differences.
Where can I see why a result changed?
In the selected scenario's Analysis, use the Details section navigation to choose the calculation you want to inspect. The available sections follow the scenario's inputs and results; some sections appear only when relevant.
Use the wage reconciliation when checking how wages and payroll deductions produce taxable wages. Other available details explain items such as ordinary income brackets, capital gains, Social Security taxation, deductions, credits, and net investment income tax. A missing conditional section does not, by itself, mean the underlying client fact is correct or complete.
If a result is unexpected, return to Inputs and check the specific source amount, its tax year, and whether it was entered manually. Preserve a baseline before changing assumptions. Review Assumptions & limitations as part of the analysis: the calculator supports planning estimates and does not prepare or file a tax return.
See Why Do Taxes Paid or Projected Taxes Look Unexpected? for the step-by-step reconciliation checks.
How do I read the safe-harbor payment estimate?
The Safe-harbor payment check, available through Estimated payments in Analysis's Planning group when shown, compares a modeled federal payment target with the scenario's payment inputs. Key figures shows the next-year benchmark when its amount is positive, with the year in its label; otherwise it shows the current-year target. Analysis’s payment check shows the current-year target.
For the current year, the calculator uses the lower of 90% of modeled current-year federal tax and the applicable prior-year amount when positive prior-year tax is supplied. The selected method is marked Chosen.
The prior-year comparison uses 100% or 110%, based on prior-year AGI and filing status. Without a positive prior-year tax amount, the calculation uses the current-year method.
The payment check counts federal withholding, estimated payments, and any prior-year overpayment applied to this year. State withholding is not part of this federal target. A next-year target is a separate estimate based on the selected year's tax and AGI; it is not a payment already made.
Confirm prior-year inputs and actual payment records before acting. Kerdora does not perform a full underpayment-penalty calculation, annualized installment-income calculation, or the special farmer/fisher payment rules. The displayed target is not confirmation that payment timing or every exception has been satisfied.
Does the Roth bracket-room estimate save a conversion?
No. Roth conversion in Analysis's Planning group can show Estimate Roth bracket room when the scenario has room in an ordinary-income bracket. Moving Ordinary income added changes a local illustration; it does not save a Roth conversion to the scenario.
The estimate multiplies the added amount by the displayed bracket rate. It does not rerun the full calculation for changes to deductions, credits, net investment income tax, state tax, or benefits. The estimated extra tax is therefore a starting point for deciding what to model, not a substitute for a revised scenario.
Use a copied scenario to test the conversion through the tax calculation. The separate Roth Conversion Analysis card on Inputs has buttons that save additional conversion amounts. Treat that card differently from this local slider; moving the Analysis slider alone doesn’t change saved inputs.
How do I apply a conversion from Roth Conversion Analysis?
A scenario’s Inputs view has a Roth Conversion Analysis card whose Apply buttons add the displayed dollar amount to that scenario’s saved Roth conversion.
Copy a reviewed baseline, then open the copy’s Inputs.
Find Roth Conversion Analysis and review its test conversion or bracket-filling conversion, when available. The card reruns the tax calculation and shows the change in Total tax.
Select the Apply button with the intended dollar amount to add that conversion to the open copy.
Review the copy’s saved inputs and calculated results, then compare it with the baseline.
Apply adds to any existing conversion amount; it doesn’t replace that amount or move money between accounts. You can also enter a conversion directly in the copy’s Inputs. See Creating and Comparing Tax Scenarios for the copy and comparison controls.
What AMT work can I do today, including credit recovery?
Kerdora's tax scenarios include a simplified current-year alternative minimum tax calculation. It adds back the standard deduction, or state and local taxes plus any itemized-deduction rate-cap reduction when itemizing.
It then applies an exemption and phaseout, AMT brackets, and qualified-income treatment to calculate any AMT liability over regular tax. There’s no field for other AMT adjustments.
The calculation does not cover the full Form 6251 workflow. In particular, it does not model ISO exercise preference income, private-activity bond interest adjustments, all depreciation preferences, or the complete AMT foreign tax credit calculation. It also does not calculate multi-year AMT credit recovery or maintain an AMT credit carryforward for you.
There is a manual Credit for prior year minimum tax field in the scenario's Inputs → Tax Credits, under Schedule 3: nonrefundable credits. The verified amount contributes to the credit calculation unless a total override replaces the individual amounts. Entering it does not establish eligibility, calculate the recoverable amount, or track a remaining carryforward.
Use a separately verified amount for an applicable credit and coordinate complex AMT analysis with the client's tax professional. A tax scenario is not evidence that every AMT item on a filed return has been reproduced.
How do I use the analysis in a client conversation?
Use the selected tax scenario's Client report to review its client-facing presentation before discussing the results. 1040 review provides a Form 1040-style view of the modeled amounts; it is a review aid, not a filed return.
For a PDF, Analysis has Print analysis, and Client report has Print PDF. Creating and Comparing Tax Scenarios explains the scenario-specific export and comparison boundaries. Opening either view or generating a PDF does not, by itself, send the report to the client.
Keep the scenario name with your recommendation so the team can identify the assumptions behind it. See Changes: Add, Review, and Share Recommendations and Tasks: Create, Assign, and Track Client Work for recording the recommendation and its implementation work. Confirm non-tax consequences and any required tax-professional review before presenting the estimate as an action to take.