Intuit Charges More For Previously Offered TurboTax Features, Users Livid 450
An anonymous reader writes: For years, the Deluxe edition of TurboTax was enough for investors and the self-employed to do their taxes. With this year's edition, Intuit removed Schedules C, D, and E, covering self-employment, investment income and asset depreciation. Those features now require an extra charge of $40. The company is getting murdered on Amazon reviews for it, with 900 users giving the software a 1-star rating.
Just hire a CPA (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're self-employed, have investment income, or asset depreciation, you probably already do your taxes with a real CPA. If you aren't, you probably should.
Schedule D?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I can understand the self-employment schedules as an upcharge, but Schedule D?!
That's something the average American household should (hopefully) be needing for their investment savings.
Owning a few mutual fund shares should hardly be an esoteric tax topic!
Plus, ya know, ahhh Bitcoin. (Just kidding)
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you're self employed doesn't mean you're rich.
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you're self employed doesn't mean you're rich.
I have found that paying a CPA to do my taxes is a waste of money. Most CPAs just take your information, and pay some data entry clerk to type it into TurboTax. You might as well just put it in yourself. You have a bigger motivation than your CPA to find deductions, and you will learn from the experience how to better structure your business to avoid taxes in the future.
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have found that paying a CPA to do my taxes is a waste of money.
Get yourself a better CPA. Mine is a tax expert. First few years I used him I did my taxes in TurboTax to compare, he always found enough magic such that he paid for himself in taxes I saved. Not to mention I just had to shovel data to him, instead of spending a few hours in TT myself. :(
Gotta find a new guy though, last year he told me he was getting married and moving out of state
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if I had a lot of capital assets to deal with, maybe that would have made things harder, but I didn't.
TurboTax handles capital asset depreciation perfectly. You only enter each asset once, and it will track it from year to year. Sometimes things get complicated, like when they changed the depreciation rules after the 2008 recession to encourage more capital spending. Lots of accountants screwed that up, but TurboTax did not.
It is a good idea to consult with a CPA when you first set up your chart of accounts, but after that you really need to learn to do your own basic accounting and tax planning. If you run your own business, these are core competencies. You may not understand accounting as much as a CPA, but you understand your business much better.
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all cost-benefit. It would take me at least a full working day to prepare everything on my own (I'm self-employed, with investments and several income streams from a couple of different countries), and my CPA charges less to do my taxes than I can make by spending the same amount of time working. I dunno, if your situation is very simple then doing it all yourself probably makes more sense, but as soon as it starts to get more complicated it's likely easier and more economically feasible to hire someone. (Not a CPA, by the way; no horse in this race.)
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Re:Schedule D?! (Score:5, Insightful)
$350 for what? Convenience?
It's simply enough to fill in the forms yourself. Programs like TurboTax handled all of this for the brain dead masses just fine, and used to cost an order of magnitude less than the CPA. And no, the market won't bear the change. Hint: This is why this story exists. People are bitching and leaving TurboTax in massive numbers. My own mother dropped it because of this in favor of some other software that does the exact same shit but charges less money.
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I bought the Professional Turbo Tax on Amazon and it cost $64. And I get 10% extra on everything from my refund that I Put into Amazon Gift Certificates. So with TurboTax this year I could theoretically take my whole refund as Amazon Gift Certificates and pay off Turbotax a few times over. But I don't think I spend enough on Amazon even with my prolific Amazon Purchasing to justify taking all of it back in Gift Card Balance.
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Well, most retirement accounts (IRA, Roth, 401(k)) won't trigger a Schedule D, so it's only if you're investing outside of that, which many people may not need to.
Re:Schedule D?! (Score:4, Informative)
Every person participating in an ESPP program or with stock option income will have to do it. That is a fair number of people. That is also why they are doing it...
Use TaxAct instead (Score:5, Informative)
Link [taxact.com]
It is much cheaper, has equivalent features, and better technical support than TurboTax. I started using this back when TurboTax added horrible DRM to their offering, and have never looked back.
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I made the switch too. Was a little different, but mostly the same interface.
Re:Use TaxAct instead (Score:4, Informative)
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Sure runs great on Linux with Wine or CrossOverOffice....
Open question if it even supports OS X browsers (Score:3)
There is a support page [taxact.com] for TaxAct that mentions there is no Mac version, and instructs you to try the web version instead...
But at the end it says:
"Also, please ensure you are using the latest version of Internet Explorer "
Rather hard since Microsoft discontinued that for the Mac years ago!
At least the system requirements page is accurate, mentioning the three major modern browsers on the Mac...
Re:Open question if it even supports OS X browsers (Score:4, Informative)
Their web app is fine. I run OS X and have used their site for years. Didn't even realize they had a download version.
Or H&R Block (Score:3)
I haven't used their equivalent of the deluxe version, but the standard one has worked well for me for quite a few years and costs less than Turbo Tax.
Re:Use TaxAct instead (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Funny)
If you're self-employed, have investment income, or asset depreciation, you probably already do your taxes with a real CPA. If you aren't, you probably should.
Sounds like something a CPA might say.
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You know I often thought that if you did all your transaction via one bank, that bank should throw in tax returns as part of it services. They already have a record of all your transactions, they can pretty much automatically categorise them based upon their nature and only very little review would be required to finalise them. They could even provide that small amount of additional software as part of their fiscal year services.
When it comes to private companies ramping charges for exactly the same thin
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Insightful)
If you get even one number wrong or leave off something, you get an ominous letter from the IRS and you have to correct your form. So if the feds already know all this information, they should just send us a completed tax form for us to either agree with or amend it with deductions. Most of the stuff on the form has already been reported to the IRS; exceptions would be self employment, foreign income, tips, etc.
Re: Just hire a CPA (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
So are taxes easier (Score:3)
Re:So are taxes easier (Score:4, Funny)
or harder then spelling?
Fixed it for you.
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...or if 40$ hurts that bad maybe reconsider your self employment and/or investments.
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$40, plus the time to interview accounts, plus a couple of drives to the accountant, plus the security risk of yet someone else (who is a target) having your banking and investment information, add in that the time to do all of that is probably billable time that you lost, since your accountant also works days.
Now consider the full time college student who's got a few contract jobs and a few grand in investments. Boom, there goes all of the investment income and quite a bit of work. Fuck you for not being t
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Insightful)
...or if 40$ hurts that bad maybe reconsider your self employment and/or investments.
The point is, they aren't offering anything for that $40. It's the same thing as last year, but twice the price. And there are a dozen other products out there that don't charge that much. In fact, many are free and simply charge for state filing.
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Informative)
If you're self-employed, have investment income, or asset depreciation, you probably already do your taxes with a real CPA. If you aren't, you probably should.
Not necessarily. If you've already got your home and other items paid for, you can be self employed and live off a fairly meager self-employed income. Or alternatively, if you have a lot of investments you can survive quite well with no direct income. Just because you have some wealth or are self employed does not mean you have a lot of discretionary funds, nor that you want to spend those funds on a tax professional.
A quick search of Google for tax prep costs for an 1040 with an itemized schedule A, plus Schedule C, Schedule D, and Schedule SE (which are the ones I personally file for my own home business), plus the similar state tax forms, have a starting cost around $400.
The big tie-in for Intuit is if you use their accounting software (Quicken for individuals, QuickBooks for small business and personal mixed funds) and properly mark your transactions then TurboTax will automatically do all the hard parts of the taxes for you, almost zero data entry was required. It would automatically itemize everything based on all the details you enter for every transaction over the year. You end up paying about $150 per year in software, but it makes accounting a little bit easier.
They could have done this with much less backlash with a little bit of additional communication. Maybe announce two years in advance that the prices will be going up, making it visible as part of the annoying ads they have built into both products in recent years. It is still cheaper than hiring someone to do it, but it is an unexpected cost they didn't mention until the last minute.
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Insightful)
If they had just said "Hey we're raising prices" rather than hiding the price increase by removing features and making you pay extra for them, they'd probably have come out ok- a bit of a hit from the higher prices, but not too much. The dishonesty of this is what's killing them.
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"The dishonesty of this is what's killing them."
On Slashdot, but Slashdot users are what, 0.001% of their customers? Then there's the fraction of people who decide their tax preparation software purchases based on Amazon.com reviews. That leaves PLENTY of other customers who might have balked at a price increase, but who will now happily go pay $40 ... and then realize they need an upgrade and pay $40 more. They won't be happy about it, but they're probably not going to switch tax preparation software in
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It's release day DLC that adds in features expected at the base price.
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If you're self-employed, have investment income, or asset depreciation, you probably already do your taxes with a real CPA. If you aren't, you probably should.
Why? It's not hard. Depreciation is just that. Investment income is easily handled with the standard reporting.
Employment is hard. We pay a CPA to do the stuff for our 2 part time employees. But the taxes I just drop into Turbotax.
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If you're self-employed, have investment income, or asset depreciation, you probably already do your taxes with a real CPA. If you aren't, you probably should.
Why? It's not hard. Depreciation is just that. Investment income is easily handled with the standard reporting.
Employment is hard. We pay a CPA to do the stuff for our 2 part time employees. But the taxes I just drop into Turbotax.
Depreciation may not be hard for you.
For damn near everyone else, including lots of people who think taxes are easy, remembering which category every-damn-thing falls into is virtually impossible. Remembering that MACRS replaced ACRS in '86, which means that a rental house that's been rented out sine 1984 could be on a 15, 35, or 45-year table (depending on what the taxpayer chose back then), etc. is just a fucking nightmare. Especially for personal vehicles used for business use. Sometimes you can deduct d
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Insightful)
My "real CPA" does just type all my info into his (better) program, then file my taxes and charge me $500. Easily worth it: he can drag me through the whole process in 1 hour, including exceptions. "Oh, Fidelity screwed up your basis for these positions, as they have with all my clients, here let me add the form where I amend that so you don't get charged twice". No stress, 5 minutes, fixed. He adds a ton of value to what he tax program does by understanding context.
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The last time I went to a tax preparer that's basically what they did, they entered the numbers into their own system and charged me lotsa money
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Considering that this is one of those things that are virtually perfect for computer automation, how do you know that "real CPAs" won't actually be computers in ten to twenty years?
Not really. CPA's are protecting themselves by creating more obscure and obtuse tax rules.
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"Self-employed" in IRS-speak covers a whole fucking lot of people. If you get paid more then $400 from somebody who doesn't withhold Social Security and Medicare you're self-employed.
You are required to file a Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ with a 1040A. You can;t use the simpler (and, at tax places that charge by the form, cheaper) 1040A or 1040EZ.
I do taxes in a fairly poor neighborhood. Per capita income is in the $20k range. And I get a lot of people who have a side-gig that doesn't do withholding. If they
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever heard of ethics?
It's kind of important in the tax prep field. I do not file returns I know are wrong. Period. I've filed returns that I'm pretty sure we're seriously bending the rules, but if a client hands me a piece of paper that legally required to be on a tax return he'll just have to live with me putting it on the damn tax return.
This exact scenario actually happened to me. Guy got out of prison, worked a couple days as a groundskeeper, and got a better job. So he had just under $400 on a 1099-MISC. Since it was on a 1099-MISC it was definitely reported to the IRS.
If I hadn't reported it, it probably wouldn't have resulted an audit. But that's because they don't bother with audits when they know they're right. What they do is program their computer to send you a letter (starting with a CP-2000) saying they think the return is wrong. Since he can't show them he didn't get paid for those two days a few months later he'd get a CP-22 informing him it was time to pay up. Now they wouldn't send the cops after him, but his next year's tax return would be reduced by whatever number was on the CP-22 plus interest.
Which would mean that, from his point of view, he paid me to do a simple thing right, and not only did I do that one thing wrong I got him in trouble with the law again.
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I've been self-employed (and now my wife is), I have investment income, and doing taxes myself takes me maybe an hour or two, once a year. It would be silly to get outside help for that.
If I was in a truly difficult tax situation, sure. But especially Schedule D, what the heck? I imagine it's a very common form, and it's trivial to do oneself.
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Or you can take control of your life, download the PDFs, fill them out and mail in your return for the cost of a stamp or two. You know, like people did before the tax preparation industry blossomed and everybody became innumerate without the crutch of a computer.
Re:Just hire a CPA (Score:4, Funny)
Damn you socialist bureaucratic hellspawn and your vastly superior tax system!
Seriously though, how many nuclear weapons and/or wildly over-priced military aircraft can your silly little country pay for with that easy to use tax system?
That's what I thought!
Not so Deluxe anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember back in the days of QuickTax -- Windows users could buy QuickTax for a decent price and do their taxes. However, if you had a Mac, you needed to buy Deluxe, as that was the only version provided for the platform -- at a higher price than the Windows Deluxe version, both of which were twice the price of the regular version.
What were the extras you got? IIRC, it was the self-employment, investment income and asset depreciation packages, along with some retirement planning tools.
The other gotcha: the schedules were never updated until AFTER the early filing deadline, which meant I always had to file an update once I'd re-calculated for actual retirement values/contributions.
Well, it's been around 15 years now since I ditched Intuit for a web-based alternative that just works (I get tax refunds now within two weeks of filing), and I see absolutely no reason to go back, or recommend anyone else uses an Intuit product. This is just another nail in the Intuit coffin.
But I hear they're one of the best places to work....
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taxact.com. Last time I used it, it was free. Free for everyone. You only had to pay $9.95 if you wanted a PDF copy of your taxes.
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I also use TaxAct. They charge for other stuff too, like State taxes, but I have no problem with that.
By coincidence (Score:5, Informative)
Intuit top management got a huge pay raise [morningstar.com] in 2014. That money's gotta come from somewhere.
Get a free upgrade or a free replacement (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Get a free upgrade or a free replacement (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone remember this debacle? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
Their anti piracy techniques included messing with your MBR. I was still doing my taxes by paper at the time, but I was sure to steer clear of TurboTax after that garbage.
Terrible company...
Asked a question about stock ownership (Score:2)
damage control mode (Score:2)
It seems Intuit is now in damage control mode; apparently if you call them and bitch enough they will upgrade you to "Premier" for free.
I've been a quickbooks customer for a long time, so I'm kind of used to the fleecing. I have never had a high opinion of Intuit the company; Quickbooks works well enough for the money, but if there was a reasonable alternative I would be gone in seconds.
Intuit sucks.
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For example:
"As I've mentioned in many other places, you are NOT required to upgrade to Premier. You can still use forms mode to complete Schedule D and print/mail your return to the IRS. There is no forced upgrade or requirement that you purchase Premier."
I literally was going to order TurboTax tonight. I've been using it for years. Not anymo
Open Source Tax Preparation Software (Score:2)
Re:Open Source Tax Preparation Software (Score:4, Informative)
As I recall the company was called the IRS. Yes that is right the IRS put out software so you could do your taxes.
You know why you don't see it? Lobbying by tax preparation companies.
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If the tax code was rational.
The problems are that multiple levels of tax code interact in complex ways that vary with the exact addresses involved in the claim.
So, you're not writing one codebase which does taxes, but in a very real sense, thousands.
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It is incredibly fucking complex.
I work for a major tax prep company, and we're upgrading this year. The big bosses finally got sick of paying two guys to come out of retirement every year because nobody else understands a DOS Codebase.
They've been trying to upgrade for about three years, but the program was never ready. Even today we'll have to switch over to the old DOS software for certain returns.
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One word; gaurantee. If the correct information is entered into a Turbotax and they make a mistake in calculation you can get re-paid for penalties and interest under their Turbotax accurate calculations guarantee [intuit.com]. Open Source software can not do that.
Re:Open Source Tax Preparation Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Tax preparation software is not a good candidate for open source software. You need domain experts (accountants and lawyers) to be involved to validate the interpretation of the Tax Code; open source projects have a difficult time attracting these sort of contributors. The law changes every year and if you don't keep on top of the changes becomes worse than useless; it becomes a liability. You have solid deadlines; you can't just release when it is ready.
Retrocharging (Score:3)
It's also a big topic of conversation at the dinners I have to sit through with money-grubbing shitfaced sociopathic CEOs.
It's called retrocharging.
It works on the same model as MMORPG's and DLC except it's more insidious: The company threatens to take away something you already have unless you pay them more money.
Comcast does this. They are now doing "account audits" after which they send you a letter telling you they're going to start charging for features they claim you have always had but haven't been paying for.
The best 1-star software you can find (Score:2)
So now that it's 1.5 stars, does that mean it's underrated? because it's still one of the best bits of software out there.
Douchebag company anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
They 'expire' the online features of their Quicken, etc software every few years, to force an upgrade. They have no need to do anything on their end with the online connectivity... it's all connecting directly to banks. It's crippling their software to force upgrades that add very little value (and usually add more bugs than improvements).
They also at least at one point had 'problems' connecting to network printers that they had to go out of their way to detect, just to force upgrades to higher level software.... because, you know... people with network printers must be businesses.
F--- them. There are very few people I actually despise, and the executives there certainly made the list.
A fool and his money are soon parted (Score:3)
The best way to do your taxes is with a ball point pen on tax forms that you've printed on your own printer. Just fill in the same stuff you did last year, recalculating or modifying the numbers where they've changed.
Federal + state takes about an hour, and you're not paying anyone a penny, except for two stamps. You can do self-employment taxes and investment income yourself, and pretty much anything a typical Slashdot reader would ever need.
Don't bother with "free file" unless you work in a state without income tax. That's where they charge you. Forget about H&R Block: Saves you no time whatsoever and they charge you a lot. If you make an honest mistake on your taxes, you can file revised paperwork. The IRS understands that people make mistakes. H&R Block doesn't "find you money." They do the same work you can do in an hour.
If you happen to make well over a hundred thousand dollars a year, congratulations, you're not a typical Slashdot reader. Pay an accountant to do the job. Don't even think about doing your own taxes.
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Whether a retail tax place is a good deal really depends on two things:
1) How good you are at following instructions written in simplified legal English.
2) How much you're depending on these taxes to be exactly right.
1) is much harder for most Americans then you'd think. The phrasing is quite complex. You have to immediately pick up on whether a line is asking you to use Adjusted Gross Income or Modified Adjusted Gross Income, etc. As Engineers most Slashdotters could probably do it. OTOH, as Engineers, wit
Schedule C is not Only for Business (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a side-job that doesn't withhold you are legally required to report it as a business. That way Self-Employment taxes get calculated properly, and you get credit with Social Security administration. The only out is if you earned less then $400. Then you're exempt from Schedule SE.
Which means that if you make $500 helping a caterer do big banquets, or even if you work for a cheap-skate who does't like withholding, you've got a Schedule C. You have to have some records of whatever expenses you paid to do the job (this is pretty much the only way you can deduct commuting mileage), you have to put them on the form, the whole nine-goddamn yards.
Schedule D is less common, but not as rare as you'd think. It;s where you report stock sales, so any Slashdotter who lived the dream of a successful start-up has filed quite a few of these. Most of Mitt Romney's income is actually reported on a D, because he pays himself with stock from his company, which he holds for a long time, which allows him to take advantage of the very low long-term Capital Gains rate.
Schedule E is the rare one. It's only for landlords.
Re:Schedule C is not Only for Business (Score:4, Insightful)
Schedule E is the rare one. It's only for landlords.
Have a few friends living in your house with you, and they pay some rent towards mortgage? You're the landlord, you need a schedule E. Likewise if you have a sole-individual lease and sublease out a room or two to friends/roomies...
I ditched TurboTax years ago (Score:2)
One year they includes a 'feature' that locked the version to a single computer. I had used Turbo Tax up until then but ditched it when they pulled that stunt. I have never looked back.
How many versions do they have now? And WHY?
Intuit's MBA's have ruined the product (Score:2)
I switched to TaxAct last year as the discounts I got from my e-stock brokers were severely curtailed. What happened this year doesn't surprise me in the least.
I have schedules D and E, and the only issue with TaxAct that I had 2013 taxes was the State E-filing option. I ended up filing state using paper.
I've never liked Intuit (Score:2)
A few years ago, a relative bought a new laptop that came with Windows Vista. She asked me for help putting her QuickBooks onto it.
Her version of QuickBooks simply wouldn't run on Vista. So I went to the store to buy an upgrade. I carefully studied the feature lists on the boxes for the various versions, trying to figure out which one she needed. For $100 I got some version ("Express" or "Starter" or something like that). It had all the features she needed and was $100 cheaper than the next version.
It
Dirty Little Secret (Score:3, Informative)
The governments of most advanced countries provide free on-line income tax preparation for thier taxpayers. Not so in 'Murica it where it is "monetized".
There is quite a powerful American lobby (Intuit mostly) in place to keep things that way. This is perfect example of what happens when outfits such as faux news brainwash americans that no good can come from a government run program of any kind. The other advanced countries do not charge anything as they see it as something in thier best interest.
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No hand holding required. (That is unless you are the one who is insecure) This is just something that the citizens of other countries expect from thier governments
and Americans have been conditioned to be "Exceptional individualists" to the point that they are getting robbed blind by opertunistic business entities.
Typical American. Took it completely out of context as usual. Can't tou see that companies such as Intuit are RENT SEEKERS. Geez.
Re:Dirty Little Secret (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I live in a country where if they want to tax me they make the effort to work out what I have to pay instead of expecting me to do their work for them.
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In New Zealand, income from a job where you are an employee (most people) is handled by a system called PAYE (pay as you earn). It's automatically deducted from your pay.
Bank account interest is handled by RWT (residents witholding tax), automatically deducted from your interest. If you're not in the top tax bracket you need to tell your bank, or they will overtax you.
Every year you can, if you wish, ask for a "personal tax summary" which states income and tax. If you paid too much tax, e.g. if you took
Jealousy may have caused this? (Score:2)
Maybe the tax software development department at Intuit got jealous of the Quicken software development department.
Perhaps the tax folks saw the Quicken folks changing the colors in Quicken X++ and tweaking a few settings to make sure that online banking no longer worked for older releases and coming out with a new version every year with little work. Then they looked at the actual work (gasp!) they have to do every year to conform to new tax laws and decided to find some way to extract more money to keep u
Too Late for me DRM killed it a decade ago (Score:2)
Wonder if they will do the same in Canada (Score:3)
I've been using their tax software for years and haven't looked into their offering this year because I found an alternative that lets you pay what you want to, including nothing, after you have filed. It's at simpletax.ca in case anyone is interested. Now I just need to find an alternative for my company taxes.
Re:Not just self-employed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your fake incredulity notwithstanding, most people do not have the cash for that. They have to pay bills.
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Soooo they don't plan on retiring ever?
Re:Not just self-employed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much:
http://www.fool.com/retirement... [fool.com]
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Your fake incredulity aside, not everyone is so lucky as to be planning for retirement.
Some people simply hope to die peacefully at their desk or behind their counter.
Re:Not just self-employed.. (Score:4, Funny)
when I die, I want to go in my sleep, like my grandfather.
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Schedule D won't apply to tax-sheltered retirement accounts (at least during the investment stage; I haven't gotten to the withdrawal stage to figure that part out yet), so it's only if you've got investments outside of that.
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Hopefully they will violently revolt and install a new system to replace our ailing oligarchy.
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Your fake incredulity notwithstanding, most people do not have the cash for that. They have to pay bills.
Investment income does not necessarily mean having a fortune in assets.
Your personal bank account pays dividends and the government will tax it. Even my kids who maintain a balance of under $100 in their accounts earn a few cents of "investment income" each year.
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Taxable interest is a line-item on the 1040. It's not treated as "investment income."
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That's a good question. I would think it wouldn't be a large percentage.
Sure like 50% of Americans have 401k's etc, but actual capital gains/losses? I would guess that number is pretty low and probably a large part of the development for the software since it can be so complex versus your straight 1040a/ez filer.
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I have some, had some sales last year too. Doesn't need to be much, there's only a few thousand dollars in it.
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There is too much temptation for politicians to muck with tax rules for various reasons. It's unrealistic they would keep it simple for simplicity's sake. They want bragging rights for new programs or tax breaks, and the negotiating to get such changes passed often creates convoluted compromises.
An interesting idea was that the IRS could simply do your taxes for you and send you a receipt along with stated assumptions to be verified, but tax prep co.
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And put all those accountants and lawyers out of work!
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The government makes the tax laws and could, in theory, check that everyone has paid correctly.
They simply do not have enough information to do what you suggest. Unless they could track *every* transaction every taxpayer made, even when in cash, there is no way to be sure they could catch everything correctly.
Also, *some* people make money but don't get a paycheck so there is nothing to deduct money from.
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You are mistaken. Even if the IRS COULD track every transaction, they wouldn't know enough.
Given our current set of tax regulations it would be generally impossible for the IRS to figure out your tax liability by watching all your transactions. In many cases there are multiple options for the tax treatment of a transactions which may result in different tax liabilities. There are even non-financial transactions (ones that don't involve money changing hands) that can drive differing tax bills. And you cann
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I think what Intuit actually blocked was the IRS providing a software solution similiar to all the other commercially available stuff. This would have effectively killed 90% of those commercial products business.
The US government could very well setup a system like much of the rest of the 1st world uses. That is the government tells you what it thinks your taxes for the year should be, and since those taxes are already being withheld they have the money. You then get to tell them if you think the amount is
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The government makes the tax laws and could, in theory, check that everyone has paid correctly. So why do we have to do this yearly ritual? How about the bizarre game of guessing how much to deduct from your salery and how many exemptions it needs to be - just have the correct amount deducted automatically.
Anyone with complicated finances, which would include any business, or who doesn't trust the government would still do it the same as now, but for most people it'd be far simpler.
Because as ProPublica reported, Intuit has spent over $11 million lobbying to prevent the IRS from offering us that service. That's why, every time we discuss electronic filing on Slashdot, we get posts from outside the U.S. saying, "Ha! Ha! Stupid yanks! We file our taxes automatically for free!! How's Obamacare going?" And the worst thing is they're right. We are stupid for letting corporations buy Congress and run the country.
http://www.propublica.org/arti... [propublica.org]
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple
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Yes, but it takes a week to find papers and reset passwords for direct import from bank/brokerage accounts. If you have a hardcopy of everything in one place, filing by yourself is dead simple too.
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Intuit has a near monopoly with Quicken, and a major draw of TurboTax is having data flow into there trivially from the program that's already tracking your bank statement each month. If they still had viable competitors, they wouldn't be trying these tactics.
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Additionally, they now charge to view old tax returns filed with them