from the internet turbotax was giving us an error message with no directions as to where the error was or how to fix it. we could not find it, it was very frustrating. i contacted the intuit help line where it took him a long time to find it also. however he did and downloaded the desktop version for us and everything was sent without any problem. very greatful for the associate that helped us. thank you
What's great about it: once downloaded onto desktop everything worked wonderful
What's not so great: hard time using turbotax from internet
Excellent attention to detail; extra hints needed.
on April 13, 2014
Posted by: SteveJonKaplan
The best thing about TurboTax is that if you have a lot of experience preparing taxes, you can eventually find everything that you want. The main problem is that if you're not sure about something then you're not going to get much assistance. For example, under the section with home office deduction, a box asks what percentage of your business is done in your home office--without telling you that if you select a number below 50% then you won't be allowed the deduction and it won't explain why it wasn't allowed. When doing estimated taxes, there's no simple way to say "apply enough estimated tax to cover the first two quarters and refund the difference", which is probably what half of filers would prefer. Instead, you have to use a complicated route to figure this out yourself. For business owners, the organization method for Schedule C is very useful once you figure out how it works and allows for every deduction to be included somewhere and properly calculated. It would be helpful if future versions of TurboTax would send timely reminders about paying estimated taxes and would remind users about year-end benchmarks in November or December (such as doing Roth rollovers or making charitable contributions) before it's too late to change them.
What's great about it: Has everything there if you know what you're doing.
What's not so great: Additional hints would be highly useful.
When we first started using TurboTax our returns were relatively simple. As time went on, however, they became more complex, but TurboTax remained easy to use. The explanations provided for some of the more complex tax situations we ran into were always helpful. Finally, having live help available if needed is a great feature. All in all, would highly recommend TurboTax.
What's great about it: Easy to complete all taxes
What's not so great: Update too several tries
Pros: My job status changed this year (switched jobs, lost a job, got a raise or promotion)
Made an error and had a very hard time deleting and refiling. Info on your web site to correct this was incorrect. Please fix this in next years program. Very frustrationing.