I Wish TurboTax had a feature which would......

[FiveDriver]

Wishfully thinking, I know. But there are some features that would help as I slog thru the inputs.

I realize that they tally your Refund in real time as you enter your Income. It'd be nice if they also had a running tally of your Total Income on the top bar too.

I'd also like to see a better side-by-side comparison to last year's Income, especially the Interest and Dividends. I know they display the entire INT and DIV from prior years, but a line item comparison would help spot major mistakes.

When in the process does TT actually apply the Standard Deduction ?

 

[GrayHare]

I wish TT let me choose display fonts and colors. My eyes are not getting younger.
I wish TT did not ask me repeat questions. "Do you want to work on that now?" Uh, yeah, that's why I chose it.
I wish TT scrolled the display the same direction on each page when I turn the mouse wheel.
I wish TT let me turn off autosave which is terribly slow and renders the program dain bread while it's saving.
I wish TT did not ask me if I want to save again when I've not made any changes.
That's been the wish list for 10+ years so I'm not holding my breath on improvements.

 

[audreyh1]

When in the process does TT actually apply the Standard Deduction ?

Immediately, I think, unless something in the interview process makes TT switch to using Schedule A instead.

 

[Koolau]

I wish I could talk myself into USING TT. Instead I pay a CPA to do my taxes. I've never done taxes so it's been worth it to me to pay for the service. BUT I know that TT would save me a nice chunk of money.

 

[zinger1457]

I wish I could talk myself into USING TT. Instead I pay a CPA to do my taxes. I've never done taxes so it's been worth it to me to pay for the service. BUT I know that TT would save me a nice chunk of money.

You can use TT or most online tax software to try out, payment is only made when submitting the returns, if you're concerned with privacy just plug in dummy info for personal information. It would be worth the 'adventure' if nothing more than to double check the CPA returns. I learned very early on that even the tax pros make mistakes.

 

[Koolau]

Thanks. I should try it - but no promises.

 

[ut2sua]

I wish I could talk myself into USING TT. Instead I pay a CPA to do my taxes. I've never done taxes so it's been worth it to me to pay for the service. BUT I know that TT would save me a nice chunk of money.

I hear ya. The issue with me has never been the $, but it was the fact that my CPAs almost always did my taxes incorrectly. Whenever I double check, I have always found something that was not done correctly. On top of that, I felt like 90% of the effort for me was to collect information (yes, I have had fairly complicate tax situations especially during my working years). So entering the info into TT only took <10% of the effort for me.

 

[ut2sua]

It'd be nice if they also had a running tally of your Total Income on the top bar too.

Clicking "Form" on the top right and select "form 1040" should give you this, no?

 

[Koolau]

I hear ya. The issue with me has never been the $, but it was the fact that my CPAs almost always did my taxes incorrectly. Whenever I double check, I have always found something that was not done correctly. On top of that, I felt like 90% of the effort for me was to collect information (yes, I have had fairly complicate tax situations especially during my working years). So entering the info into TT only took <10% of the effort for me.

Fortunately, I don't know enough about taxes to catch many errors. It's easier that way.

 

[Midpack]

I’m fine with the workflow of TT. I just switch back and forth from Easy Step to Forms and back if I have questions during the process. If I’m not sure about an obscure entry, I might bring up last years same form (from a saved pdf) to compare to this years. Foreign tax credit is the only one that comes to mind in my case.

I don’t care what my total income is on a running basis, all the matters is the final number to me. But you can see it by clicking on Forms and looking at your 1040 any time, two clicks, and one click back to resume Easy Step.

You do get to see a 2 year and 5 year comparison when you’re done, the only time it makes sense to me - if I’m not done entering data, comparing doesn’t mean anything. Frankly the running tally of Refund isn’t useful to me. I always start out owing a ton and it falls to near zero as I complete the return. Who cares until the final number?

I save my entire return as a pdf when I’m done, so once TT and I both think the return is done and ready to eFile, I put last year and this year up on screen side by side and compare line by line each form to be more sure. So I do get a line by line comparison from one year to the next, or as far back as I might want.

 

[audreyh1]

We also switch back and forth. DH does downloads which is most of the data, then uses interview to manually enter the remaining. He usually looks at the resulting forms afterwards. Then we go through the rest of the interview process to see what’s missing.

Review is a critical step. When we think we’re done, we review a saved PDF. I have a very complete spreadsheet estimate of the year’s taxes which I complete in Jan*, and this is a great comparison reference. We also read through all the forms and double check against the 1099s and other received tax docs. Also make sure any carryovers are correct.

*I do the estimated tax work during the year. By late January I know exactly our income from each account and likely total taxes owed. This income data is collected by Quicken and I have some spreadsheets. As we prepare to use TT I also collect all the forms (almost all electronic these days) and make a list of all the accounts and the forms received from each so I know all accounts are accounted for. DH works through this list as he enters TT data.

 

[target2019]

I wish TurboTax had fewer features, so that the cost would decline each year. I don't need bells and whistles.

I know that is a pipe dream since the corporation must get fatter each year.

 

[FiveDriver]

Thanks for all the replies.

I clicked on the Forms view after I had posted this last night. I'll get into it again after brief respite. I need a break for Valentine's Day !!

Believe it or not -- we're still waiting for one of DW's Consolidated Forms in the mail (RBC said it won't be mailed until Feb 20th. They're always the last one to arrive).

I asked this group about Total Income because our Income is approx the same as last year's.....but we seem to owe a lot more Taxes.

Can I run the 'Review' at any time during the data entry ??

 

[audreyh1]

Do you have a PDF copy of last year’s return to compare to your current return in progress? If so you could compare the forms and see why so far the taxes seem higher.

 

[FiveDriver]

Do you have a PDF copy of last year’s return to compare to your current return in progress? If so you could compare the forms and see why so far the taxes seem higher.

Yes, I did print a paper copy of last year's return and stuck it in the folder for easy access. I'll do a comparo at some point to see where the big difference is coming from.

I changed my W-H last year to more closely match this year's projected Income, which is why the big diff is so troubling to me.

Can I run 'Review' at any point in the data entry process ??

But today I'm declaring a Valentine's Day Weekend, free from Tax issues.

 

[Midpack]

Can I run the 'Review' at any time during the data entry ??

I've never done that, as I'm not sure what it would mean when you know the return you're working on is incomplete. It wouldn't hurt to just try it, TT won't let you corrupt your data. Review is just for errors/omissions - it's not going to predict why the refund/amount owed isn't what you were expecting.

 

[audreyh1]

We only run the TT Review step when we think the return is complete and we have checked it.

 

[Buckeye]

I wish I could talk myself into USING TT. Instead I pay a CPA to do my taxes. I've never done taxes so it's been worth it to me to pay for the service. BUT I know that TT would save me a nice chunk of money

I wish I could talk myself into USING TT. Instead I pay a CPA to do my taxes. I've never done taxes so it's been worth it to me to pay for the service. BUT I know that TT would save me a nice chunk of money.

My best friend got fired by her CPA firm. I guess a $750 return is just a nuisance to them She's been asking me for years to do her taxes so this year I relented. I took her 2023 return and loaded it into my 2023 TT program to be sure I had everything duplicated from her CPA (she has 2 rental properties). Everything was ready to go for 2024 so it only took about 90 minutes to do her 2024 taxes. I recommend you buy the 2024 TT software and load your 2023 taxes using the interview to see if you can duplicate what your CPA got.

 

[cathy63]

Can I run 'Review' at any point in the data entry process ??

Yes. It's not likely to catch anything that affects the tax though. It mainly highlights missing entries such as when you import a brokerage statement that shows foreign tax was paid and you didn't go through the edit screens. The review will ask you to specify the countries you paid the tax to, which are listed on the supplemental info in your brokerage statement. It will also make you check the box that says you don't have a FATCA filing requirement and similar things that you may not run into if you skip around in the interview.

 

[FiveDriver]

Thanks Cathy, I always appreciate your knowledge on Taxes and Social Security.

I have a suspicion that I entered something incorrectly in DIV or Cap Gains, but I don't want to get into that tonight. As I mentioned, we're waiting for a Consolidated Form from RBC which won't be mailed for another week !!

I don't mind writing the Feds a hundred dollar check......but this is currently looking a lot worse than that.

 

[Car-Guy]

I'm pretty happy with TT as it is. I noticed it seems slower in processing or jumping around between different sections this year, or maybe its my PC.

 

[imjustawarrior]

I wish the UI was more condensed. I feel like there is too much scrolling and clicking next. This is on TT deluxe desktop.

The desktop version takes way too long to start up and Intuit knows it.

Overall, TT is a really solid program.

 

[FiveDriver]

Well, I believe I've found my data entry error in Turbo Tax.

It involves the Year End Capital Gains Distribution on some Mutual Funds that DW just inherited, like Magellan.

These Year End Distributions are treated as Long Term CG.....but how do I get from 1099-DIV, box 2a into Schedule D Line 13 in Turbo Tax ??

 

[audreyh1]

Well, I believe I've found my data entry error in Turbo Tax.

It involves the Year End Capital Gains Distribution on some Mutual Funds that DW just inherited, like Magellan.

These Year End Distributions are treated as Long Term CG.....but how do I get from 1099-DIV, box 2a into Schedule D Line 13 in Turbo Tax ??

We import most of this stuff. But in TT there is generally a form for the 1099-DIV from each institution and account. You might be able to locate this form if you have already provided information during easy step. Otherwise look in easy step to find where to enter capital gains information.

 

[cathy63]

Well, I believe I've found my data entry error in Turbo Tax.

It involves the Year End Capital Gains Distribution on some Mutual Funds that DW just inherited, like Magellan.

These Year End Distributions are treated as Long Term CG.....but how do I get from 1099-DIV, box 2a into Schedule D Line 13 in Turbo Tax ??

TurboTax does that automatically. You enter it as a 1099-DIV with a number in box 2a and TTax will automatically put it on Sched D (or on your 1040 if you are not required to file Sched D).