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Intuit Charges More For Previously Offered TurboTax Features, Users Livid
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.
Intuit top management got a huge pay raise in 2014. That money's gotta come from somewhere.
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.
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.
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.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
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.
Does anyone remember this debacle? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
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...
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.
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...
Link
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.
I gave up TurdboTax back in the 90s.. Now I use TaxAct... Intuit can go fuck off...
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.