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the income tax is byzantine for maybe a third of the population. The other two thirds of the population have a W-2, maybe a 1098-T or E, and take a standard d
by jaynos 11y ago
the income tax is byzantine for maybe a third of the population. The other two thirds of the population have a W-2, maybe a 1098-T or E, and take a standard deduction. Granted, they can use TurboTax for free, but it's still a waste of time.
The lifetime education credit is calculated based on the 1098-T that your school had to file with the IRS.
I had to help two friends navigate TurboTax after they couldn't figure out where to enter a 1098-E (student loan interest), so my anecdotal evidence is that TurboTax easily misses certain items when hey ask "Did you go to school this year", but not "Did you have education expenses" (or something similar). Without someone who had already used the software to enter similar items, they may not have been able to get that credit.
My main complaint with TurboTax (other than the fact that I have to use software to file taxes and buy a new version every year) is that I am charged to e-file at the state level.
- Karunamon 11y agoYou're being rather reductive, here. If I had just filed my W2 and 1040, I'd have missed the credit, and the existence of that 1098-T sent to the IRS wouldn't mean that I'd have received a check in the mail later. Also, the credit applies if you start school in the first three months of the new tax year, This is what I mean. Comparing income tax filing (with a W2 and a 1040 by mail, with nothing else, that's at least 3-4 pages of work, with no guarantee that you're paying what you ought to be) with a restaurant bill (an itemized receipt of things you bought) is fundamentally dishonest. Every comparison made is against single charge, a single payment, based on a usually simple formula, rather than an entire freaking body of law.