<prompt> Human: Let me start by saying I dont know much about taxes. I put in my W2s and had a refund of about 600, but when I put in my Wifes W2, the refund then became about 200. I am using turbotax. What happened to my money?  <response>: What happened to my money?It was never there.See, when you started you told them that you were Married Filing Jointly. That gives you a larger standard deduction and personal exemption than if you were filing Single which you would do if you werent married.So when you only put in your W-2s, it calculated your refund based on the larger standard deduction personal exemptions shielding a great big chunk of it. But in reality that was never the case since you still had to add in your wifes W-2. Once you did, it only looks like her wages are taxed more because you saw so much of your wages shielded from taxes by the married deductions - but half of those deductions are hers.You can see this if you take out your W-2s and only have hers in. Look at the refund. Then add yours back in. Suddenly, it is your W-2s causing the great increase in tax!But in reality it makes no sense to do a midstream calculation. It is like if you and your wife went to the store with your grocery money. You both put items into the cart, since you pay together since you are married. But you put the food you picked out onto the register checkout first and start to pay the bill out of your total grocery money. But wait! You still have the food your wife picked out! After that is added, suddenly you are left with a lot less grocery money. So did your wifes food cause you to lose out on grocery money? No, because that was both of your grocery money, earned together, and you just decided to anchor the number in your mind of the food you physically put in the cart when you know that you need to pay for all the food the two of you selected.TL;DR - The refund shown in these tax software programs before all W-2s are added is a fake number that means nothing and they shouldnt even have that stupid refund calculator shown during the process. 