OT OT TurboTax

I gave up on Turbo some years ago when they did some really stupid things. I've been using what's now called H&R Block Tax for several years. Best deal so far is this link at newegg.com

and this code for HALF PRICE: EMCKNNW23

The Deluxe + State download version with free Federal E-file is $22.50 after the discount.

So far Turbo Tax works for me so no need to change a 25+ year tradition. It's what I know.

It's "interesting" that they Require an email address to get the discount (basically saving $7.50), and they disclose that they "will" add you to their email list if you make a purchase. I was going to order (just now), but I decided it wasn't worth $7.50 to be spammed all year (by who knows who...). By the way, this version does not include the "10% bonus" (on increments of $100 from your federal tax return) which you can find from other sellers of the product. I found Intuit's conduct so poor last year however, that I switched to H&RB's product, and I intend to use it again this year. It won't cost me more than $29.99 though because they sent me a coupon for that price in the mail. It's also currently $29.99 at Amazon.com, at least it has been recently, and that version includes the 10% bonus.

Bill

Worth a few bucks just to not have to enter the basic information every year, just log in and go.

Ditto ... as much as I despise Intuit's business model, I've had good luck so far with TurboTax the past twenty years. Buy their audit insurance each year, had to use it once a few years back, One of their lawyers represented me for a total of less than $50 for the entire process.

That alone paid for about 20 years of product.

Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news3.newsguy.com:

I have a special e-mail address just for things like that. I have it set up to forward to my main e-mail where it gets sorted into a folder for deletion later.

Apparently Yahoo! mail lets you set up "disposable" addresses, but you have to set a base name and then the digits are disposable. You only get one chance per account to set the base name, they don't tell you that.

Puckdropper

Don't understand this worry about spam. I use Gmail (6 years) and every bit of spam goes into my "promotional" folder. Maybe one in a thousand sneaks into my "primary" folder. I ignore the promo folder except when I need to look at a Harbor Freight ad.

I use both yahoo and gmail and, compared to ten years ago when it was nothing to see 200 spams a day when running my own mail server, I get virtually no spam.

I gave up on Turbotax when they did that 2003 bad-idea copy protection thing. I used Taxcut (now H&R) for several years, but last year switched to Taxact, since Taxact had added support for filing 1041s for trusts.[*]

Turbotax can only do that at the $150 "Business" edition level. I don't think H&R's software does 1041s at all. I don't remember exactly what it cost with Taxact, but it was around $75, as two or three payments and downloads. Taxact does not have the same novice friendly interface, but it worked very well and I found the customer support phone line helpful.

I contintue to dislike Intuit since they spend so much money lobbying against simplifying tax filings. And in addition to direct lobbying they hire shills to write bogus op-ed pieces to raise opposition to things like free online filing.

Elijah

------ [*] a grandparent left a college fund trust to the kids

snipped-for-privacy@wizardanswers.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I do mine in Excel using this spreadsheet:

I compared the results with TurboTax once years ago, and they came out the same, and doing it in Excel was quicker...

John

Yeah! and I really do not enjoy learning a new program for the sake of doing so.

Precisely, leave the emotions out of the decision making and TT is still a good product.

And despite the fact that $50 is $50 ;~), it is a no brainier to guard against future headaches. It is just something that I don't want to have to worry about should I get audited.

More than likely H&R gives the discount only if you provide your e-mail address so that "they" can contact you about future purchases. They probably would not let anyone else have your information if they say that they would not share or sell it. Most likely you could opt out from their e-mails in the future.

You might be surprised to see the list of who all actually lobbies against simplifying tax filings. I strongly suspect that Intuit is not the only one. Hell The IRS does not want to simplify it as it would put them out of business. The federal government could simply do as Texas and a few other states do and collect their taxes on sales and not income. That would be very simple. IMHO the government should be funded based on performance not as a right to entitlement.

Does Excel submit your filings or fill out your forms?

And I see from the link that this is mostly a double check to the forms that you have to fill out anyway.

From their web site,

As always, carefully check all spreadsheet results against the results you obtained after using the actual IRS forms and instructions.

FWIW TurboTax does the double checking automatically and with out having to run a separate program for verification.

Using Excel sounds like double work to me... but that is just me. ;~)

On 12/30/2015 11:23 AM, Leon wrote: ...

Using Excel for virtually anything is almost always double work... :)

LOL No kidding! so I still use Lotus 123 instead. ;~)

But seriously "some times" a spread sheet is easier than creating a report in another program.

I pay the combined cell phone bill which includes our land line and at one time the internet and TV, for my wife's, son's, sister's, my, and once upon a time my dad's cell phones. They each reimburse me quarterly and not all of the shared portions of the bill are equal. and don't get me started on the separate taxes and fees on each.

The spread sheet makes those calculations as to who owes what much simplifier for me.

Newegg is the seller, and I am already on their list. But I "got the gut feeling" that an email address entered in the indicated box was going to be sold in a mass-marketing way, by whom I don't know, to recover the $7.50. I could be wrong, but the fact that the email address was a non-negotiable part of the deal made me back away. IMO, they don't require my email address to sell me tax software. The amount of Spam you get for $7.50 is probably a lot!

I have used products from Intuit, H&R BLock, and Newegg. They all had my email address, all have sent ads, all stopped immediately when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and hit "unsubscribe". No reason to think any of them sold my email address.