How Is Turbo-Tax?

Don't know what the going rate for tax preparers are here in DC.

We use Turbo Tax - have for 15 years. Used Tax Act once - NEVER again.

I've never had a problem with Turbo Tax. It walks you through your returns step-by-step. In regards to your investments - again - walks you through it step-by-step.

We used H&R Block one year and were terribly disappointed. The guy took several hours to do something that seemed really simple. His software took us through everything question by question. It cost us a good bit of money.

We have used Turbotax for over 10 years with pretty great sucess. I think that it works pretty well as long as you have pretty uncomplicated stuff. We pretty much have 2 W-2 forms along with our stuff for our mortgage, my student loan, and daycare stuff for our 2 kids. It does save all of the personal data from year to year which makes it easier.

I wouldn't use it if I owned my own business or had a bunch of Capital gains or anything like that. I also would not use it if I had any judgements, liens, bankruptcy, or any discharged medical bills.

We've used TurboTax for a number of years now. It really is easy to use. We aren't really complicated but we're not super basic either as far as things that need to be claimed.
I like it because you can enter things as they arrive in the mail so you don't have to sit in one lump of time to work on it. This is one of the things I love because my kids never give me enough time to sit in one lump to do it. The day I plan to finalize it and submit it I have my mom come over to keep the kids out of the way so I can focus, double check and take care of submitting it.
It is absolutely worth it!

I have used Turbo-tax the last 3 years and I think it's great. Very easy. Step by step directions, very simple to follow.

They ask you a serious of questions to see what kind of things you have and what kids of things you don't have.

We have rental income, my husband has a ScottTrade account that he 'plays with' and we *had* an Schedule 1 form (40% owner of an internet company) that we had to claim...and I did it all just by following the directions. You can go back and fix things, you can click on stuff and ask questions. It really is set up quite nicely.

*I have always been fairly good with numbers tho, if that matters any...meaning that doing the taxes never really bothered/scared me.

Before we tried Turbo-Tax we had, in prior years, hired a professional accountant at $400 a pop, Jackson Hewitt at $300+ a pop and once H&R Block but they were so long ago I don't even remember how much it was?
I watched closely every time, asked lots of questions and was never confused by anything they did and it came quickly apparent that they just followed a computer screen and I figured "Hey, I can do that"!

Turbo-Tax does come with a 'guarantee' that you can pay a lil' extra for (I think? maybe it's just free) that covers you in case of an audit...and at the end it runs a program that gives you the probability % of you getting audited by what you have entered, which is really cool!

When our tax return was quite simple (mortgage, several stock market transactions, fairly easy itemized deductions, etc), we used Turbo Tax. For many, many years, in fact. And we liked it just fine.

Then our tax return got a bit more complicated, we owned property we were renting out, my husband had some overseas investments, among other issues. And Turbo Tax didn't *quite* cover all our needs. So now we use a tax preparer.

But Turbo Tax was just fine at the time we needed it. Sometimes I wish we could go back to it. It certainly costs less than what we're paying now!

I've done mine/my family's taxes using Turbo Tax for over 10 years. I've never had a problem with it. If your financial or investment dealings are with well-known companies, often Turbo Tax loads all the info it needs directly from those companies.

The last time I paid a tax preparer to do it for me, they made a mistake that I was charged for. I figured I could make my own mistakes.

My husband used TurboTax for quite a few years for our personal taxes. He has a background in accounting and financials.

We never had any issues with it and the program will ask certain questions, etc to guide you. We used Turbo Tax up until last year with our personal taxes. Even when hubby used the Turbo Tax, he still had our CPA review it just in case.

We go through our CPA 100% now because things are more complicated and since our CPA does all of our taxes for our company, we moved our personal to him as well so he is fully aware of the entire picture.

I have no idea what it cost. I think our guy charges something like $150 an hour. I usually send him a check once or twice a year for about $2000 to keep on our "account". We meet about 4 times a year for an hour or so to go over details and then he does the taxes for our personal and our business. I never owe him any money so I guess what I send during the year to put on our account takes care of it.

I would certainly steer clear of the HR Block and places like that who are only around during tax time. I've never heard anything positive about HR and they advertise for help around here a lot so I am lead to believe the preparer's are not CPA's.

Good luck!

There is one that runs around 79 that is for investments. Most brokerage firms will give you a password and Turbo Tax will import the information. You will still want to verify everything because I have yet to have a year where it didn't put something in the wrong place but it works.

It does tell the difference between short and long term and as long as the info went in the right spot it calculates the gain/loss.

So yeah, it works.
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Oh, if you have investments 300 is the going rate here.

I think it really depends on how complex your taxes are. From your quesitons, it sounds like there may be some complexity. I could definitely do my own taxes, but I no longer do my own. About 6-8 months after filing my 2010 taxes, I received a notice from the IRS advising me that I had missed reporting and paying taxes on $100,000 income and now owed them tens of thousands of dollars. Yikes! Obviously, that was NOT true nor had I received $100,000 income from investments nor did I owe them any money. Thank God for my tax preparer. He managed the whole thing...knew exactly what to write and how to explain the situation, sent everything to the IRS, etc. A few months later I received a letter from the IRS advising me that the error had been resolved, no money owed and file closed. I pay my tax preparer less than $150, and I consider it worth every dime.

I have used the free online tax prep at taxact.com.... however, I haven't had anything complicated. I have had to put in some stocks a couple of times, but the system stepped me through it, but I don't remember the cost basis info.....

Due to some circumstances last year, we may have to resort to a paid preparer this year, but I haven't checked on local prices yet.

I and my extended family have been using Turbo Tax for years and have found it very satisfactory. It's easy to use. The questions you asked are answered as you progress thru the pages.

It does take time to do. I estimate that I work on it for several hours. It's quicker to take the papers to a tax preparer. And some people do not trust themselves to figure it out.

I took my papers to a tax preparer for 3 years. The first year was good. I was recently married and it was easier, tho it cost more, to have him fill out the papers. My husband was anxious about the taxes. The next two years I used a different preparer (I'd moved)and it was not easier because his office was in his home. Getting an appointment took time and he was late giving me the paperwork. We had a personality conflict. So I went to Turbo Tax.