5 ms·

It's absolutely ridiculous that we can't get pre-filled tax forms here in the US. As the article notes, a large part of the reason for that stems from question

by FreakyT 12y ago

It's absolutely ridiculous that we can't get pre-filled tax forms here in the US. As the article notes, a large part of the reason for that stems from questionable behavior on the part of Intuit, which has been known to not only engage in lobbying [1] but also astroturfing, creating fake "grassroots" campaigns made up of "concerned citizens".[2] (I guess these "concerned citizens" just really enjoy spending time doing paperwork and buying tax software.) [1] http://capitolweekly.net/turbo-tax-maker-intuit-again-is-mired-in-political-turmoil/ http://capitolweekly.net/turbo-tax-maker-intuit-again-is-mir... (link from the article) [2] http://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-maker-linked-to-grassroots-campaign-against-free-simple-tax-filing http://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-maker-linked-to-g...

grandalf 12y ago
I used TurboTax this year and it's horribly buggy. I ended up having to print and mail two state returns due to TurboTax bugs. Not using it again.
- eli 12y ago
  It's almost beside the point -- it would be a problem even if TurboTax worked perfectly -- but I agree, I've found the interface quirky enough that it makes me question if it's always doing the math correctly.
  - sbov 12y ago
    Turbotax has a view that lets you see all the forms and how they're filling it out. It's pretty easy to check the math there if you really want to. Depending upon how complicated your taxes are, it can also be easy to do them by hand. I only recently started using turbotax because I was tired of doing it by hand. My taxes are fairly simple though.
    - eli 12y ago
      It's a few years ago, but I had a slightly complex multi-state situation and found that the numbers TurboTax calculated changed based on the order in which I typed them into their interface. That really felt like a bug.
    - emgeee 12y ago
      Am I the only one who's disturbed by the notion that a human should have to check a computer's math?
      - T-hawk 12y ago
        I don't think anyone's really talking about the literal math, the adding and subtracting. It's more about pulling and putting the right numbers in the right places. Here's an illustration. Say you sell a security that shows $X,Y00,000 proceeds of which $X,000,000 is cost basis and $Y00,000 is capital gain. It's really important to make sure only the $Y00,000 gets included in any taxable number. The 'math' in question is that this amount should be taxable and this amount shouldn't be, and the checking is that it was correctly expressed to Turbotax. Turbotax will not make mistakes regarding the business logic of the forms. It will correctly "add the value from line 19d on schedule XYZ" every time. But Turbotax can't know that you entered the data correctly in the first place. It has no underlying concept of "this $Y00,000 shouldn't be taxed" or that you should have used schedule UVW instead of XYZ. It's just a fancy flowchart shuffling some spreadsheet cells. This is why you want to double-check Turbotax's operations using the form views that it provides. The form views are Turbotax's step-through debugger. If you think Turbotax is getting something wrong, it's much more likely that you misunderstood a question and entered something that wasn't what it was asking for. Perceived bugs in Turbotax are right about in the same space as "blame the compiler" bugs in programming. They can exist, and poor messaging can create false positives, but 99% of the time, it's the user providing some kind of bad input instead.
        grandalf 11y ago
        In my case it fetched a 1099 from some remote source, and the text in one of the fields on the 1099 was automatically entered into a field on my return. The "debugger" identified that the field contained too many characters and would not let me edit the field or submit the return to NY so I had to print it. This results in a $50 failure to comply with the e-file-mandate penalty from NY. For my IL return it would not allow me to e-file b/c I didn't have the PIN which is assigned the first year you file. However the system's workflow entered an infinite loop and I had to just abandon and click "print return" order to continue. > Turbotax will not make mistakes regarding the business logic of the forms. I do not think this is true. It will let you enter arbitrary values in fields on the form that you should not have edited. It does not re-check and delete unnecessary entries from the forms either, though in some cases these problems trip up the debugger and it forces you to delete the return and start over. If the forms had truly thorough input validation it would be a very confidence-inspiring product to use.
- freditup 12y ago
  Is it that bad? I tried out TaxACT for the first time and was fairly unimpressed. It didn't help clear up any of the tax questions I had, basically just linked me to the tax docs. It also had a pretty poor UI. Was thinking about trying out TurboTax next year, but it is more expensive and if it is just as bad...
  - bonesmoses 12y ago
    I used TaxACT from 2000 until last year, when its interface for handling my HSA made me want to immolate my computer. Then TurboTax helped out. This year, I just said "fuck it" and went to H&R Block, because I'm just done with doing it myself. Someone else who does this all day can do it faster, yell at the computer less, and I'll get the same results. All of this should be automated by now, but no...
    - derekp7 12y ago
      I normally do my taxes myself (I only have a simple schedule A -- home mortgage interest and property taxes deduction). However, a couple years back I sold stock I got years before, so I went to H&R Block. When I looked at what they billed me for -- I sold something like 160 shares of a stock, but the broker had to do multiple transactions (150 shares in one block, 8.something, on another transaction, etc), so I had something like 10 lines that accounted for a few bucks each. And the Block charged something like $25 for each "stock sell" line. All told it cost close to $300 for them to do my taxes.
- arbitrage 12y ago
  I've used turbotax for years, including this one, with some rather ... interesting ... returns in some years, and have never had a problem. I've used TurboTax this year and it's frighteningly stable. Anecdata isn't terribly helpful.
  - grandalf 12y ago
    Last year I was impressed but on this year's return it fetched some 1099s and imported data which exceeded some built-in field limit, then wouldn't let me edit the form to fix the problem. I think for a professional tax preparer it would be great but the wizard left me scratching my head wondering if I'd filled it out correctly.
  - undersuit 12y ago
    I also used Turbotax this year, and like every year at the end when asked how the process could be improved I made a similar, albeit less convincing, argument to FreakyT's. This is my 4th year of telling Turbotax I hate them after using them.
- rebootthesystem 12y ago
  I've used it for the last five years. The interface isn't the best. That said, for a program I use once a year it's OK. works fine for me.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I had similar problems with TurboTax's efiling system failing last year. This year I used TaxAct, which cost me $12 and isn't as evil as Intuit. Worth checking out if you're looking for something else next year. http://slickdeals.net/f/7774581-taxact-ultimate-bundle-deluxe-federal-state-12 http://slickdeals.net/f/7774581-taxact-ultimate-bundle-delux...
- kelukelugames 12y ago
  I knew people who worked at Intuit. The company's monetization plan is to make money off of old people. I switched to HR block online, it was much cheaper.

by FreakyT 12y ago

grandalf 12y ago

I used TurboTax this year and it's horribly buggy. I ended up having to print and mail two state returns due to TurboTax bugs. Not using it again.

eli 12y ago
It's almost beside the point -- it would be a problem even if TurboTax worked perfectly -- but I agree, I've found the interface quirky enough that it makes me question if it's always doing the math correctly.
- sbov 12y ago
  Turbotax has a view that lets you see all the forms and how they're filling it out. It's pretty easy to check the math there if you really want to. Depending upon how complicated your taxes are, it can also be easy to do them by hand. I only recently started using turbotax because I was tired of doing it by hand. My taxes are fairly simple though.
  - eli 12y ago
    It's a few years ago, but I had a slightly complex multi-state situation and found that the numbers TurboTax calculated changed based on the order in which I typed them into their interface. That really felt like a bug.
  - emgeee 12y ago
    Am I the only one who's disturbed by the notion that a human should have to check a computer's math?
    - T-hawk 12y ago
      I don't think anyone's really talking about the literal math, the adding and subtracting. It's more about pulling and putting the right numbers in the right places. Here's an illustration. Say you sell a security that shows $X,Y00,000 proceeds of which $X,000,000 is cost basis and $Y00,000 is capital gain. It's really important to make sure only the $Y00,000 gets included in any taxable number. The 'math' in question is that this amount should be taxable and this amount shouldn't be, and the checking is that it was correctly expressed to Turbotax. Turbotax will not make mistakes regarding the business logic of the forms. It will correctly "add the value from line 19d on schedule XYZ" every time. But Turbotax can't know that you entered the data correctly in the first place. It has no underlying concept of "this $Y00,000 shouldn't be taxed" or that you should have used schedule UVW instead of XYZ. It's just a fancy flowchart shuffling some spreadsheet cells. This is why you want to double-check Turbotax's operations using the form views that it provides. The form views are Turbotax's step-through debugger. If you think Turbotax is getting something wrong, it's much more likely that you misunderstood a question and entered something that wasn't what it was asking for. Perceived bugs in Turbotax are right about in the same space as "blame the compiler" bugs in programming. They can exist, and poor messaging can create false positives, but 99% of the time, it's the user providing some kind of bad input instead.
      - grandalf 11y ago
        In my case it fetched a 1099 from some remote source, and the text in one of the fields on the 1099 was automatically entered into a field on my return. The "debugger" identified that the field contained too many characters and would not let me edit the field or submit the return to NY so I had to print it. This results in a $50 failure to comply with the e-file-mandate penalty from NY. For my IL return it would not allow me to e-file b/c I didn't have the PIN which is assigned the first year you file. However the system's workflow entered an infinite loop and I had to just abandon and click "print return" order to continue. > Turbotax will not make mistakes regarding the business logic of the forms. I do not think this is true. It will let you enter arbitrary values in fields on the form that you should not have edited. It does not re-check and delete unnecessary entries from the forms either, though in some cases these problems trip up the debugger and it forces you to delete the return and start over. If the forms had truly thorough input validation it would be a very confidence-inspiring product to use.
freditup 12y ago
Is it that bad? I tried out TaxACT for the first time and was fairly unimpressed. It didn't help clear up any of the tax questions I had, basically just linked me to the tax docs. It also had a pretty poor UI. Was thinking about trying out TurboTax next year, but it is more expensive and if it is just as bad...
- bonesmoses 12y ago
  I used TaxACT from 2000 until last year, when its interface for handling my HSA made me want to immolate my computer. Then TurboTax helped out. This year, I just said "fuck it" and went to H&R Block, because I'm just done with doing it myself. Someone else who does this all day can do it faster, yell at the computer less, and I'll get the same results. All of this should be automated by now, but no...
  - derekp7 12y ago
    I normally do my taxes myself (I only have a simple schedule A -- home mortgage interest and property taxes deduction). However, a couple years back I sold stock I got years before, so I went to H&R Block. When I looked at what they billed me for -- I sold something like 160 shares of a stock, but the broker had to do multiple transactions (150 shares in one block, 8.something, on another transaction, etc), so I had something like 10 lines that accounted for a few bucks each. And the Block charged something like $25 for each "stock sell" line. All told it cost close to $300 for them to do my taxes.
arbitrage 12y ago
I've used turbotax for years, including this one, with some rather ... interesting ... returns in some years, and have never had a problem. I've used TurboTax this year and it's frighteningly stable. Anecdata isn't terribly helpful.
- grandalf 12y ago
  Last year I was impressed but on this year's return it fetched some 1099s and imported data which exceeded some built-in field limit, then wouldn't let me edit the form to fix the problem. I think for a professional tax preparer it would be great but the wizard left me scratching my head wondering if I'd filled it out correctly.
- undersuit 12y ago
  I also used Turbotax this year, and like every year at the end when asked how the process could be improved I made a similar, albeit less convincing, argument to FreakyT's. This is my 4th year of telling Turbotax I hate them after using them.
rebootthesystem 12y ago
I've used it for the last five years. The interface isn't the best. That said, for a program I use once a year it's OK. works fine for me.
wlesieutre 12y ago
I had similar problems with TurboTax's efiling system failing last year. This year I used TaxAct, which cost me $12 and isn't as evil as Intuit. Worth checking out if you're looking for something else next year. http://slickdeals.net/f/7774581-taxact-ultimate-bundle-deluxe-federal-state-12 http://slickdeals.net/f/7774581-taxact-ultimate-bundle-delux...
kelukelugames 12y ago
I knew people who worked at Intuit. The company's monetization plan is to make money off of old people. I switched to HR block online, it was much cheaper.