Any recommendations for tax programs? I'm done with Turbotax.

I’m not trying to dissuade you; I’m just curious (because inquiring minds want to know) what is the number one reason you are done with Turbo Tax.

Why I’m curious is because I assume you’re a rational person so your reason must be material and not inconsequential like you dislike their logo. More importantly, I’ve use Turbo Tax ever since Parson Technology’s tax was discontinued in the early 80’s so I’d like to know known material risks by others.

There are really only two main options for personal tax preparation software: TurboTax and H&R Block.

There are a few other much smaller name and less robust/more bare-bones options, like FreeTaxUSA, TaxSlayer, or TaxAct. But those are geared primarily towards those with simple returns.

So if you have anything more than a super simple tax return, you want the backing of one of the big names, and you're writing off TurboTax, that makes the choice simple. Hope you don't end up "done" with H&R too.

Your other option is to pay an accountant to handle it for you, which costs more, but may be worth it for you to avoid the hassle altogether.

My best tax experience was way back when I lived in my hometown 20+ years ago. There was a tax accountant's office across the street from my work, and I used them the whole time I was there. Drop off tax stuff, come back for a brief meeting to answer questions, hand them a check, and everything filed error free. I talked Dad into using him, and Dad used him until the guy retired. The son took over and Dad switched to the son.

I had TurboTax for about 10 years, but they lost my trust the last year that I was living in Alaska (2014). I used it and did my taxes mid-February that year since I was expecting a refund. I had to delay filing because I hadn't received the receipt for the largest charitable deduction (I had input my other charitable deductions and was already doing the itemized deduction). Once the receipt finally comes in I jump back in TurboTax, it does an automatic update, my refund decreases, I input the 5 figure charitable deduction, and my refund is still smaller than when I had left off weeks earlier. In other words, had I not delayed filing I would've submitted an erroneous tax return because TurboTax had a programming error they fixed part way through tax season.

I had one of the big 4 accounting firms while I was an expat in Canada. Employer paid for it, and it was painful using them (e.g. 7 hours to upload data and fill out questionnaires, they sent it to India, had a 30 minute telecon with somebody in Toronto for Canadian taxes, and had a 30 minute telecon with somebody in Chicago for US taxes). To make it even more painful, every year they refiled Canadian taxes to get more money back for my employer. I think by the end the Canadian submission was 180 pages. Hands down the worst tax experience of my life.

I used the H&R Block software 2018 to last year. Recently, I was looking at doing a backdoor ROTH IRA conversion so I retrieved the pdf of all of my tax returns since creating the traditional IRA. I have IRS form 8606 for every year except last year, and I made a traditional IRA contribution for that tax year. It looks like I have to refile with a 1040X, the 8606, and a $50 penalty.

I'm switching to the "tax guy" in my financial advisor's office. I hope it's like the good 'ole days like when I lived in my hometown.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

Going back on memory here...I recall TurboTax had some various issues in 2014. For me, it didn't spit out our 8606 forms and I didn't catch it; I simply trusted TurboTax and the forms were not included in my 2014 return. My guess is it's now immaterial 10 years later.

I've been using TurboTax a long time. the only time I had trouble with it was when I found a bug that forced me to pay taxes on a savings bond I inherited that the deceased had already paid taxes on. there was a provision for it in the software but it was broken. I talked to their developers about it and agreed it was a bug after they hearing about it, but I was forced to pay the gains taxes anyway, since I use Turbotax and there was no way to mix electronic with paper correction forms easily. And in more recently I was able to pull off an inherited capital gains situation in turbo tax myself, after failing to find a tax accountant to handle my taxes on such late notice. So for me I'm good with turbotax.

I guess if TurboTax is out then H&R Block it is then?

Used both but not that my experience means anything but now we only use H&R - works fine.

No real difference as I can recall between the two.

Still waiting for the OP to tell us why he's done with TT.

I've used Tax Act for years and not really ever had an issue. The only time I did, the Govt was late getting their new forms out and I think every piece of tax software in the country got hit by this. However, it's not their fault, it was the Govt. Anyway, it just delayed getting my return in a few weeks, but it was in before the deadline.

I used Block for many years (decades). A couple of years ago, they failed at printing out IRS standard filing forms. This bug continued through at least tax year 2022 when I switched to Turbo. In my only year of using Turbo, they failed to print a necessary supplemental form (forget the #, but it was business deductions), and I got hit with a penalty and interest. For background, I always file on paper, usually right up to 4/15, and generally have to pay $15 - $20K with my return, mostly due to my home-based small business income. Yes, I know that I could file quarterly and avoid the penalty, but I'd rather pay it than go through that torture four times a year. I will probably use Turbo again this year, but be more careful about what I send the IRS. The Block "interview" IMO is more complete and less prone to error/reworking than the Turbo interview.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
The only time I did, the Govt was late getting their new forms out and I think every piece of tax software in the country got hit by this. However, it's not their fault, it was the Govt. Anyway, it just delayed getting my return in a few weeks, but it was in before the deadline.

Do you recall what year that was?

TT has been pissing me off for abut 4 years. I like to keep hardcopies of my forms, for 3 of the last 4 years it simply will not print from my Mac and customer support is nil. It's also quite buggy when downloading investment data. I'll try H&R, but may end up paying an accountant.

I switched to H&R Block online after many years of using TurboTax, both software and online.

What made me switch really was TurboTax seems to want to nickel and dime you to death and their prices go up every year.

H&R Block isn’t as fancy or polished but it does the job and it’s good enough for me.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
What made me switch really was TurboTax seems to want to nickel and dime you to death and their prices go up every year.

Every year? Here's the base cost of TurboTax Deluxe from Amazon for the past 9 tax years. (And during some of these years I only paid as low as $30 with promotions.)

2015: $40
2016: $40
2017: $40
2018: $40
2019: Unknown, but almost certainly $40 (I had to order the $65 Business version this year, due to the ex-wife's side work)
2020: $40
2021: $40
2022: $45
2023: $45

And the only additional cost each year has been the $20 state e-filing fee, which is optional if you don't mind mailing in your state return and waiting longer for it to be processed.

So I haven't been nickeled-and-dimed, and the base price has only risen $5, once in the past decade.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
TT has been pissing me off for abut 4 years. I like to keep hardcopies of my forms, for 3 of the last 4 years it simply will not print from my Mac and customer support is nil.

TurboTax always lets you save your tax forms as PDFs. In fact, I'm pretty sure it does it automatically as a default.

So even if there's some funky software/printer interaction that makes it so you're not able to print directly from within the TurboTax software itself, you can just open the saved PDF into Adobe Acrobat or any other PDF reader of your choice, and print the PDF of the tax forms from there. Merely one simple extra step as a workaround.

If you can't even print your tax forms from that PDF using a separate PDF software, then that problem has nothing to do with TurboTax specifically, but rather is an issue with your printer or printer driver. TurboTax customer support can't fix your printer for you.

^^^^
An excellent post. Informative with hard data.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
What made me switch really was TurboTax seems to want to nickel and dime you to death and their prices go up every year.

Every year? Here's the base cost of TurboTax Deluxe from Amazon for the past 9 tax years. (And during some of these years I only paid as low as $30 with promotions.)

2015: $40
2016: $40
2017: $40
2018: $40
2019: Unknown, but almost certainly $40 (I had to order the $65 Business version this year, due to the ex-wife's side work)
2020: $40
2021: $40
2022: $45
2023: $45

And the only additional cost each year has been the $20 state e-filing fee, which is optional if you don't mind mailing in your state return and waiting longer for it to be processed.

So I haven't been nickeled-and-dimed, and the base price has only risen $5, once in the past decade.

I switched from software to online a number of years back and wasn't "$40" for me. We had to use the version for people with rental properties and cost more right off the bat.

I think the last time I used it 2 years ago it was almost $200-$250 to do my federal and state taxes e-filed by the time I paid for everything.

H&R Block was less

TurboTax Premier is the version designed for personal tax returns with additional rental income. It's currently $65.99, with free federal e-filing and 1 free state return included. (State e-filing is an additional $19.99 if you don't want to mail).

Even if you need the additional contractor/home business forms too and have to bump up to TurboTax Home & Business, it's only $75.99 with the same additional stuff included.

So either way, it should be <$100, even with e-filing. Nowhere near $200-$250.

(Hell, the full-blown Business version of TurboTax for corporations is only $115.)

So something's very wrong if you were somehow paying $200+ for a personal tax return through TurboTax. That's more than I used to pay my accountant to do my taxes ~10 years ago.

I guess it's possible that the online version direct from Intuit really is drastically more expensive, though I don't see how/why that would be, compared to buying from a retailer with their added costs/overhead. And even if that's the case, the easy fix would be to just not use that way more expensive online version...

quote:

Originally posted by Fredward:
TT has been pissing me off for abut 4 years. I like to keep hardcopies of my forms, for 3 of the last 4 years it simply will not print from my Mac and customer support is nil. It's also quite buggy when downloading investment data. I'll try H&R, but may end up paying an accountant.

Did you try printing/saving as a .pdf file then printing the .pdf?

quote:

Originally posted by SR:
<snip>
Did you try printing/saving as a .pdf file then printing the .pdf?

Suggested by RogueJSK four posts above yours.

I switched to HR block after having problems with filing turbo tax. I tried to efile and even though it said it was included charged for it extra.
HR block has been flawless.