I remember when personal computer spreadsheets caught on (mid-80's?) and all of a sudden you didn't have to be a mathematical modeler or computer programmer to explore numerical what-ifs and optimize quantitative outcomes. TurboTax has updated and applied this technology for relevance and ease for everyone - providing step-by-step prompts to feed personal financial inputs into a complex model of the US Tax Code. Along the way the user gets educated to make smarter planning and decisions for next year. I cannot imagine having a preparer charge me money for filing, considering I'd still have to do the time-intensive and critical part of providing proper inputs, else just pay up for "garbage in - garbage out."
What's great about it: Interactive optimization to help think about next year
What's not so great: Paying extra to efile the free state return
I have three rental houses with the same management company. I received one 1099 MISC for the rental income from all three houses. Turbo tax tried to force me to put all the 1099 MISC income against a single house. I had to pretend I had three 1099 MISC forms instead of one to get the numbers to work.
This was easily the fastest I finished the taxes. I have used Turbo Tax for 10+ years and this was the best experience. I will be using again and recommend it to anyone.
What's great about it: Ease of data input
What's not so great: Too many questions I had to select No instead of skipping
I've used TurboTax for years now. The setup of the program makes it easy enough that even with my taxes getting more and more complicated by the year, I find that I only spend a few hours on this drudgery.
What's great about it: Makes sure I don't miss anything and does all the hard stuff.
What's not so great: I wish it was free... or unnecessary!
Frustrating, puzzling -- cross my fingers and hope
on April 13, 2014
Posted by: scratchgravel
This happened frequently at other times, but always after TT updates the program would not return me to the precise page that I had bee working on when I left it.
Also, if it needed info from several previous years, it did not show me the result when in EasyStep mode. The software needs to be more open about telling what it is doing and why.
And most troublesome, when I reviewed the printed file, it appeared that the information was not transferred correctly from Schedule J to the appropriate line in Form 1040..
What's great about it: Imports records from most financial organizations
What's not so great: Doesn't go back to where I left off. I think there is an error in Sch.J vs 1040