50 ms·

I also switched to FreeTaxUSA this year. Same as in your case, TurboTax got the bigger refund (I was able to figure out why, in my case) … but the extra refund

I also switched to FreeTaxUSA this year. Same as in your case, TurboTax got the bigger refund (I was able to figure out why, in my case) … but the extra refund was completely eaten away by the higher cost. I.e., I ended up with more money with FreeTaxUSA, even though the initial return was of poorer quality. (We caught the error and it was corrected anyways … so … yeah.) There was a state tax error, I think, in TurboTax's return. The FreeTaxUSA got that particular item more correct. (It was a bit of a debatable item, though.) IMO TurboTax can't justify its price, vs. FreeTaxUSA.

TimTheTinker 3y ago
There are some cases TurboTax can handle that FreeTaxUSA can't, if I'm not mistaken -- AMT due to early ISO exercise being one of them.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  That's going to be pretty exceptional at the scale of most Americans. Even here on HN, I'd wager that's the exception: you need to be working at a ISO-awarding startup, have your ISOs vest, and have your company be doing well enough that exercising them seems like a sane fiscal decision. (… or, well, I suppose you can #yolo.) I've worked for startups for a decade, and I've yet to run into that. (Particularly since employers hold the view of "getting a raise == changing jobs"; this pretty much fixes options' value at $0.)