TurboTax Warning

I have been looking and reading this morning and it appears to me that the H&R Block software is almost or as good as Turbo Tax and it can be had for $49 or less for their Deluxe which does the sale of stocks, bonds, dividends, etc.

Does anyone have a personal experience using it ? What do you think of it ?
Thanks in advance.

 

Here's a 2014 review of H&R Block Tax software - you can judge is it's "almost as good":

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2453111,00.asp

 

It may be cheaper in 2014, but just like the reference in your first post...H&R's software doesn't support those schedules either at that price.

It's also much harder to work with - more manual intervention required.

 

Been using Turbo Tax every year forever. Same this year.

Thanks for the heads up, had downloaded but hadn't noticed. I'll need to upgrade to Premier. All good.

 

For the record, H & R Block 2014 Deluxe absolutely covers Schedules C, D and E and income reported on a K-1. It also includes 5 free federal e-files. As to ease of use, that's a matter of opinion. I've used both Turbo Tax and H&R Block and each has its faults and advantages. This year I went with the Block product. That's how I know what it covers.

 

E-Filing, among other things, reduces the amount of time it takes for your refund to show up in your account. I've filed my taxes and had my refund deposited in my account in as little as 10 days versus up to SIX WEEKS for the IRS to mail me a check. Also, if some reports are to be believed, E-filing reduces your chance at an audit so whomever it was upstream who said "I want to cause the government as much pain as possible" is only increasing his chances of having to do more work since those paper forms have to be looked over and processed by human eyes which is another chance to introduce error (to say nothing of the fact that filling out the forms often introduces error as well - transposing numbers, etc)

 

FWIW, The February 2014 Consumer Reports had this to say re: H&R Block:

Re: TurboTax:

 

Wonder why they didn't reference the 60,000 taxpayers in 2013 who had major refund issues because of the failure/flaws of their software. It was handled very poorly by H&R Block and made national news.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/handr-block-glitch-delays-tax-refunds/2013/03/14/8b9d5ea8-8bfb-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html

Nothing like that has happened with TurboTax. So it pretty much comes down to who you trust to do this important work, and $10-$15 either way won't sway most people.

In any case...good luck with whatever folks use. As long as they are satisfied, that's all that really counts.

 

Are you suggesting doing it with the paper forms and a pencil?

 

Guess Turbo Tax isn't perfect.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98665

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/03/11/used-turbo-tax-to-file-you-may-have-to-do-it-again/

 

I have done paper and pencil once or twice in the last several years. With a lot of purchases and sales of stocks it takes awhile and the software goes to the website and retrieves all the info for you. However, I only had 2 purchases and one sale this year and it would be a breeze.
Not going to rush with any of it since I usually owe them at the end of the year and wait until the last week in March to pay it.

 

Nothing to do with bowling.


Sent from my iPad 4 128GB using DBSTalk mobile app

 

Perfect no - nothing is perfect - but just much better,

And those issues didn't cause delays in refunds to tens of thousands of taxpayers like H&R Block experienced in 2013.

It's good to have choices.

 

I agree it's good to have choices. Deciding which program is better in any given year is a personal value judgment, as is deciding that a security breach for tens of thousands of taxpayers is not as serious a problem as delaying tax refunds.

What is objective is what types of returns each program purports to cover. This year H&R Block Deluxe covers more than TurboTax Deluxe. Whether it does it in a satisfactory manner is up to each individual to determine.

I hope all the tax software programs produce accurate results this year and that users don't have to deal with delayed updates or serious bugs. Enjoy doing your taxes, if that's possible. It never has been for me regardless of how I prepared my return.

 

Quality still reigns supreme for mission-critical purposes, and those who change passwords regularly with any software run minimal risk of breaches, especially with financially-sensitive sites or data (online bank or tax sites in particular). It's a common-sense best practice.

Agree that different versions of different packages offer different coverages...which is why they offer them in the first place - one size does not fit all, but one size often fits most.

On topic - a lot of folks (if not most) don't even use Schedule C or D, so is a "warning" really required? Nope - just reading the product package description should suffice - get the right package that fits one's situation. Packaging changes on numerous software products each year - nothing new there. Heck - channels included in satellite packages change from time to time - but we don't see "warning" announcements on that...just informational.

It comes down to picking what best matches needs...so on that front...we both seem to agree that to each their own.

 

I appreciate that this warning was posted.
Since I have used the product for many years, I just usually go in the store, pass the rack / display that has them and pick one up. You don't expect them to totally change up the software without a warning. This is one case where they did.

My lady friend in Victoria , TX said she has worked for H&R Block in tax seasons and that software she used was excellent and easy to use. She did not know if it is the same as what we would buy at the store. I suspect it is not.

I will be switching when it is time for me to do my taxes in March.

 

+1. I just bought Premier for $55, thanks to Bob Nielsen's find. If I bought Deluxe and found I had to upgrade to Premiere afterwards, it would have been at an additional cost of $30 over whatever I paid for Deluxe.

 

Yep, +1 also, thanks for the thread. I wouldn't have noticed until doing my taxes in a few months.

It's weird though ... last night I went into the Deluxe version, clicked on "Upgrade" and it showed as "Free". It then asked me for my TurboTax Advantage account login and did the upgrade. I auto-renew every year and had downloaded when the Deluxe version was available. So at least so far, I wasn't charged for the upgrade. Hmmm, I wonder why it was free.

 

Cool Beans!

Yup...got Deluxe for $39.99 (local price match deal) and the upgrade for free, even though I don't need the extra schedules.

Maybe TurboTax is doing the free upgrades for us "early birds".

Happy preparation everyone.