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Hmm. How good is Turbo Tax, I mean I can tell it's horribly coded, but does it have automated features/recommendations that will help you earn more? Or is it ba

by seivan 14y ago

Hmm. How good is Turbo Tax, I mean I can tell it's horribly coded, but does it have automated features/recommendations that will help you earn more? Or is it basically what the tax system does in Swede/Finland etc?

k3n 14y ago
They usually have a free version that is adequate for the most basic of returns, and then all others require you to purchase something in order to file through them. If you actually want the value-added services (such as the recommendations you mention), then you pay even more. The situation is a farce and a disgrace to our country; the pockets of a few are getting lined at the detriment of the many. Wait, are we discussing taxes, or healthcare, or big banks....?
- gav 14y ago
  The free version is just for Federal, you have to pay to file your state tax return. What I find insulting is having to pay to file my taxes, then having to pay sales tax on top of that.
  - k3n 14y ago
    Thanks for the clarification; luckily (?) I live in TX where we don't have state income tax, and so I forget that. Agreed about the "paying taxes on paying taxes", and of course the general idea of there being a for-profit industry centered around a requirement of citizenship. This is clearly another area that furthers the agenda of the Plutocracy, whereby the wealthy are at a great advantage on account of being able to afford a CPA to find all the loopholes.
  - cm2012 14y ago
    I filed my NY state tax return for free using TurboTax, just a data point.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    What a lot of people don't realize is how easy state income tax is, and how a lot of states have gone to fully online forms. I think people assume it is as complicated as federal taxes, but our state, it's essentially just "take your federal gross income from the 1040, add a few things to it, then subtract a few deductions." The form and the worksheets is two pages. So what I do is prepare the return in Turbotax, then print it, then file it electronically on the web for free. Fun thing is that Turbotax calculates the tax a dollar different than the state's web site.
chaz 14y ago
Why do you believe that TurboTax is horribly coded? I can't say whether or not their code is good or bad, but the US tax the fact that TurboTax is so popular and successful is only because the paper + accountant alternative was so terrible. I was describing an business app I've been working on to a non-technical friend, and she commented, "whatever you do, please make it as easy to use as TurboTax." There was an interesting article posted on HN on how Intuit manages its 10 million lines of code for QuickBooks. I wouldn't be surprised if TurboTax is built in a similar fashion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4315578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4315578
- bluedino 14y ago
  I'm not sure how terrible paper+accountant is/was, but TurboTax is just so damn convenient. I can do file my taxes on my lunch hour, at 3:00am, or while I'm on a webex at work. They're instantly submitted (or at least they appear to be) and combined with direct deposit I get my refund within days. In the old days I had to either drop my paperwork off at an accountant and wait, do them myself and mail them in, or make an appointment with a preparer.
themckman 14y ago
I've used the web version of Turbo Tax the past 2 or 3 years and it's actually pretty nice. It feels a little heavy at times, but for the most part it is pretty responsive. As to how the code actually looks, obviously I can't speak much to that, but from a user perspective, I'm quite pleased with the experience. It does try and help you find more things that you might have missed, walking you through a series of questionnaires to try and uncover deductions you might not have known about or forgot you could take this year. And, like another reply to this comment, a basic 1040 is free to file. You have to pay if you want to file your state return through it.
harshreality 14y ago
Poorly coded in terms of usability, I'm guessing? I think the workflow for modifying already entered (or skipped) parts of the tax return is lacking. It's difficult to keep track of navigation for more complex returns. Turbotax should have a tree-like navigation pane to the side, showing status icons for each section. I don't know if it's horribly coded though. One test would be how quickly they could add the navigation pane. If the underlying code is properly designed, it would be a minor project. If the entire codebase is designed around forcing people through the back/next workflow within each category, arbitrary navigation might require major code surgery.
- FireBeyond 14y ago
  The workflow for amended returns is absolutely, utterly, horrific. If I recall correctly, it involves loading your existing return, making changes, and at some point (only vaguely defined in documentation), changing something different (err, this is a very bad description, obviously - but suffice to say, as someone who has no issue navigating complex systems, the times I've done it, it's been a horrible and fraught experience).
bradly 14y ago
I'm curious what makes you think it's horribly coded. I actually work at Intuit on an app deeply integrated in TurboTax and although I haven't seen the code for TurboTax proper, my team's code is quite nice imho :)
- T-hawk 14y ago
  For me, it was the deep integration with Internet Explorer browser elements and rendering engine. For several years, TurboTax just wouldn't run on my main desktop computer, always throwing some arcane error message about MSHTML, and the only info I could find from Intuit was something about upgrading Internet Explorer which was already done. I had to install and use TurboTax on either an underpowered laptop or my work machine. It cleared up somewhere along the line, I think with IE8 circa 2010, but I'm always still not quite trusting of TurboTax's code quality.

by seivan 14y ago

k3n 14y ago

They usually have a free version that is adequate for the most basic of returns, and then all others require you to purchase something in order to file through them. If you actually want the value-added services (such as the recommendations you mention), then you pay even more. The situation is a farce and a disgrace to our country; the pockets of a few are getting lined at the detriment of the many. Wait, are we discussing taxes, or healthcare, or big banks....?

gav 14y ago
The free version is just for Federal, you have to pay to file your state tax return. What I find insulting is having to pay to file my taxes, then having to pay sales tax on top of that.
- k3n 14y ago
  Thanks for the clarification; luckily (?) I live in TX where we don't have state income tax, and so I forget that. Agreed about the "paying taxes on paying taxes", and of course the general idea of there being a for-profit industry centered around a requirement of citizenship. This is clearly another area that furthers the agenda of the Plutocracy, whereby the wealthy are at a great advantage on account of being able to afford a CPA to find all the loopholes.
- cm2012 14y ago
  I filed my NY state tax return for free using TurboTax, just a data point.
- smackfu 14y ago
  What a lot of people don't realize is how easy state income tax is, and how a lot of states have gone to fully online forms. I think people assume it is as complicated as federal taxes, but our state, it's essentially just "take your federal gross income from the 1040, add a few things to it, then subtract a few deductions." The form and the worksheets is two pages. So what I do is prepare the return in Turbotax, then print it, then file it electronically on the web for free. Fun thing is that Turbotax calculates the tax a dollar different than the state's web site.

chaz 14y ago

Why do you believe that TurboTax is horribly coded? I can't say whether or not their code is good or bad, but the US tax the fact that TurboTax is so popular and successful is only because the paper + accountant alternative was so terrible. I was describing an business app I've been working on to a non-technical friend, and she commented, "whatever you do, please make it as easy to use as TurboTax." There was an interesting article posted on HN on how Intuit manages its 10 million lines of code for QuickBooks. I wouldn't be surprised if TurboTax is built in a similar fashion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4315578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4315578

bluedino 14y ago
I'm not sure how terrible paper+accountant is/was, but TurboTax is just so damn convenient. I can do file my taxes on my lunch hour, at 3:00am, or while I'm on a webex at work. They're instantly submitted (or at least they appear to be) and combined with direct deposit I get my refund within days. In the old days I had to either drop my paperwork off at an accountant and wait, do them myself and mail them in, or make an appointment with a preparer.

themckman 14y ago

I've used the web version of Turbo Tax the past 2 or 3 years and it's actually pretty nice. It feels a little heavy at times, but for the most part it is pretty responsive. As to how the code actually looks, obviously I can't speak much to that, but from a user perspective, I'm quite pleased with the experience. It does try and help you find more things that you might have missed, walking you through a series of questionnaires to try and uncover deductions you might not have known about or forgot you could take this year. And, like another reply to this comment, a basic 1040 is free to file. You have to pay if you want to file your state return through it.

harshreality 14y ago

Poorly coded in terms of usability, I'm guessing? I think the workflow for modifying already entered (or skipped) parts of the tax return is lacking. It's difficult to keep track of navigation for more complex returns. Turbotax should have a tree-like navigation pane to the side, showing status icons for each section. I don't know if it's horribly coded though. One test would be how quickly they could add the navigation pane. If the underlying code is properly designed, it would be a minor project. If the entire codebase is designed around forcing people through the back/next workflow within each category, arbitrary navigation might require major code surgery.

FireBeyond 14y ago
The workflow for amended returns is absolutely, utterly, horrific. If I recall correctly, it involves loading your existing return, making changes, and at some point (only vaguely defined in documentation), changing something different (err, this is a very bad description, obviously - but suffice to say, as someone who has no issue navigating complex systems, the times I've done it, it's been a horrible and fraught experience).

bradly 14y ago

I'm curious what makes you think it's horribly coded. I actually work at Intuit on an app deeply integrated in TurboTax and although I haven't seen the code for TurboTax proper, my team's code is quite nice imho :)

T-hawk 14y ago
For me, it was the deep integration with Internet Explorer browser elements and rendering engine. For several years, TurboTax just wouldn't run on my main desktop computer, always throwing some arcane error message about MSHTML, and the only info I could find from Intuit was something about upgrading Internet Explorer which was already done. I had to install and use TurboTax on either an underpowered laptop or my work machine. It cleared up somewhere along the line, I think with IE8 circa 2010, but I'm always still not quite trusting of TurboTax's code quality.