I haven’t used TurboTax recently, but I just received a check from my state’s government saying that they’ve settled with Intuit over charging customers tax return services that should have been free.
This angers me greatly at how scummy TurboTax and Intuit have become over the years. For alternatives, I’ve been using FreeTaxUSA but I’m sure there are others that people can recommend.
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Second this. Also link to relevant Cory Doctorow article for those interested: https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/17/free-as-in-freefile/
Personally, last year my taxes were somewhat complex, but I filed my taxes using the fillable electronic forms alone anyways; IRS actually nicely corrected mistakes I made on the tax form and sent me back a check… For most ppl you can probably just go to a random free provider as suggested by the IRS.
No need to use TurboTax for anything unless tax situation is super complex & you can’t/don’t want to read the IRS instructions
Good on your state for pushing back
Even completely ignoring this settlement, you shouldn’t be using them. They lobby the government to make taxes more difficult, thus funneling people toward them since they simplify the process. They make money off of making your life harder.
If all goes well, the IRS should be able to do a simple tax prep service for most Americans for free next year 🤞🤞
It’s really freaking stupid that Intuit has commandeered the tax prep market for almost 3 decades now
FreeTaxUSA for me as well. Very easy to use and it’s free for federal. Hopefully they don’t end up the same way eventually.
My only gripe with it after trying it this year is that it makes you go through the first few steps of filing for state, without iniially asking you if you were planning on paying the fee for state filing.
I’ve used them for many years. Like you said, free for federal and I think $15 if you want them to file state/local which I am happy to pay. I know I can do it free online but it’s a cheap convenience.
There’s been a big price jump in their add-ons. Deluxe is $7.99 and audit defense is $19.99 (used to be included in deluxe, which was even a bit less)
Is it really that hard to do your own taxes? I was taught to do this in school and it’s really not hard if all you have to do is write in how much money you made and then claim the standard deduction. If your taxes really are that messy then you can hire an accountant to do it, and they’ll do it ten times better than any tax software could, because if the software could do it better then they’d bloody use the software.
Edit: was mostly referring to people who work a job and that’s it, which is probably 80% of the population
Yes. My taxes are insanely complicated. I do not have the attention to detail or time to do it myself.
Tax accountant wants 1800 to do it and I’ve had multiple people fuck it up before.
turbo tax wants 150. It takes me less than two hours. It’s only been fucked up once due to an rsu maturing in a different state and clicking us over into a different qualification for dual state income
Also with our income we don’t qualify for free
It has its place as a tax software and since it works I see no reason to spend time looking for a new one
TT has twice tried to massively overtax me because of bugs in RSU and mortgage calculations.
FreeTaxUSA for me.
