Turbo Tax 2024

I also have used TurboTax forever (since before Intuit took over the user interface). Only recently have I started using electronic filing.

This year my refund was the less than what TurboTax had calculated. I got my transcript and realized that the reason was that the IRS credited my estimated tax payments on the day they received them instead of the dates that I sent them which is what I had put into TurboTax.

Lesson learned, I'll start sending in my estimates a few days before the deadline.

Years ago when I was working, I did background checks on prospective employees. I used Facebook quite a bit to check on people’s social media. I created a fake Facebook profile to accomplish what I needed to do. Fake name, birth date, the whole thing was false. E. Z. Breese was one of my favorite characters. I would get all kinds of mail addressed to E. Z. Breeze.

My login is my tax info. Do they think people will lie about that?

WTAF?

I don't follow. Rhetorical question since the answer is none of my business: did you or did you not file on time? Pay the penalty or not as appropriate. I read a warning that might be appropriate. I didn't see that they asked you to do anything such as login.

What didn't I understand?

I've been using the program for many years. From what I see, login is optional but required if you efile.

I created an account years ago and always login. I see no unwanted email or promotional mailings as a result.

FWIW, personally, I see no harm in opening an account.

Never had an issue. Always E-file and pay the $50 for audit protection. Saved me a few thousand years back and they deal with the IRS. I never had to speak with the IRS as an enrolled agent does everything at no cost to me.

Over many years we've only had two problems, both in the last ~5 years. In the first TurboTax wasn't supporting the brand new IRIS Intel graphics properly. Of course since this was a presentation problem the error message was never visible. Connecting to support via twitter worked and they were highly competent and got us thru the problem expeditiously,

Problem two was a dumba$$ miscalculation in the Colorado form last year. They 'fessed up quickly and provided an acceptable work-around instead of fixing the problem right away.

They’ve had a great ride for a long time due to a completely bonkers tax scheme. They’re running scared since they are rational (and the tax scheme isn’t). I don’t wish them any particular ill but as I see it their time is (I hope) coming to an end.

$50 for "protection?" Against what?

That is an interesting concept, like getting an attorney when one buys real estate. What exactly is it, that they do, in such a transaction?

I met an attorney and I think I told this story before. I was about 21 and had to go to court.

He told me, "There is nothing I can do for you, that you cannot do for yourself. But if you want me to hold your hand and stand there beside you in court, I'll be happy to take your money."

When I was in college my dad got audited. I was worried for him. He wasn't, as he didn't do anything wrong, and nothing became of it after he met with the IRS. That's how I've looked at life. If I haven't done anything wrong, then I really don't have anything to worry about.

Then he repeated how he could not do anything for me that I cannot do for myself. He likely saved me a lot of money in life.

I once worked with a guy who owned a lot of rental properties. He had never had any trouble with the IRS until one year he received an audit notice. He got all of his records together and went to his appointment as scheduled. Two or three hours later, the auditor told him everything was fine. The very next year, he got another audit notice. He called his CPA and told him that he had received another audit notice. The CPA told him to call the IRS; explain to them that he had too many records to take to the IRS office and that they would have to come to his house. He also told Al that he should get every kind of receipt and put them in with the boxes of legitimate records that he had. Al did as instructed and called the IRS office and told them that they would have to come to his house. The agent said that they didn’t do that but Al stated that if they wanted to do an audit, they would have to come to his house. They agreed and when they showed up at the door, Al told the agent that all of his records were sitting on the kitchen table and if they had any questions, he would be in the living room. Al said that about 5 minutes later, the agent came out of the kitchen and told Al that the receipts were all mixed up. Al said that everything that the IRS needed was in the boxes. 15 minutes later the IRS agent came out of the kitchen, stated that everything was okay and left. He said that he had never gotten another audit notice and it had been 10 or so years since that had happened.

Call an enrolled agent/CPA and ask what their hourly rate is to represent you with the IRS if you get the audit letter. It will be way more than $50. You also don't have to speak or correspond with the IRS. They handle all the communication and paperwork unless of course you enjoy talking to the IRS directly. Buy hey, to each his own. To me it's well worth $50.

I have used Turbo Tax for years and never had a problem with strange emails from them. I do not use the downloaded program. I buy the disk each year. I think they want everyone to download the program but I would rather buy the disk every year when it is on sale.

For what possible reason, would one need a CPA to represent oneself with the IRS? Are they needed to explain something, that we ourselves don't understand? What is the implication, that one has done something questionable on a return?

With the vast majority of folks taking a standard deduction, and all stock transactions appearing on 1099's,

1. Everything is electronically substantiated
2. In the event of an audit, what can a person not explain to an IRS agent themselves

It's easy money for Intuit, collecting that $50. It would be interesting to hear from one person, who actually needed something for that $50, and, finding out, what they got.

As mentioned, my dad got audited, and he met with the IRS, resolved. It seemed it was simply random. But that was the 90s. Imagine all the unnecessary services that are sold today, it's mind boggling.

just my .02 ymmv

Thing is it was a legit email from them, basically wanting me to login and update my info, and it got my attention by stating the penalty for not filing. In other words, it used scare tactics and was legit, but the not filing was generic. I get it, we are captains of our own destiny, I should have simply realized I filed, this is spam. That's why I sorta worry as we continue to age, we could get easily taken advantage of by legit people.

I do the same.

The main problem and change this year (tax year 2023, submitted in 2024), is that the program requires an intuit account to actually use. Last year it was just enter a license code and register if you want. This year this nonsense became mandatory.

1) If the CPA "did" the taxes and you didn't then they are the folks who know what happened.

2) "Everything is electronically substantiated" is false for anyone with a business. There is a whole other world besides what the Japanese call salarymen.

I have been using Taxact for several years. They are not the cheapest, but I have not had any problems with the software. I did find a coupon on the internet which worked last year, but the coupon required starting a brand new tax return. I called customer service, and they were able to apply the coupon to my almost completed tax return. Customer service was responsive when I had questions.

For a few years, we went to have our taxes done professionally. We kept finding mistakes on the returns. One year NY State had to correct the return because a school tax credit was missing. We decided it would be better to do the taxes ourselves.

The tax software lets me do the returns carefully and take my time. The efile option allows us to get the refunds quickly.

. . .is feeling ripped off when you pay the higher Federal+State price (I'm disc oriented, too) to include the state calculations, THEN cough up ANOTHER $25 to eFile your state return, especially when your state's own free eFile system is too buggy to utilize AND TurboTax generates large portions of your FEDERAL return when saving/viewing your State return documents if you intend to send 'em via snail mail.

I'd be more than happy to swap one or even two of those 5 Federal return eFilings in exchange to eFile state. Never understood why any individual needed 5 Federal eFiled returns. A preponderance of customer families with 5 wage earners under one roof? I think not.

I personally would like to see the IRS' own free eFile system become their competition and a raging success.

I stopped using turbo tax because there are other ones that are cheaper and work fine... Like cashapp and credit karma taxes.
Also turbo tax is so annoying software wise, kept crashing one year until they patched it.

I finally got the official notice from IRS regarding my late payment penalty. It was not that they nickle and dimed me for a couple of days for each estimate which they receive and cash a few days after my mailing date, but rather that one particular estimate took almost an extra month to clear. Don't know whether the IRS or USPS did it. Not a TurboTax problem.

@johnnatash4:

Intuit thinks you haven't filed your 2023 US tax return. But, of course, you have. Why would they think that, since you used them to file it? Read on...

I websearched your email message and found an Intuit support thread started by someone who got that email this year. Actually, even though you said you were sure the email was legitimately from Intuit, I was still concerned that it was fake and a phishing attempt, to steal your intuit account, perhaps with an eye towards getting access to a future refund. (That phishing attempt would only work if you clicked the link in the email to log in to your Intuit account, rather than logging in to Intuit directly.) But no, Intuit was indeed sending emails like that to others:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/why-am-i-...

As the thread says, the source of his problem was he had inadvertently set up two separate Intuit accounts, probably in two different tax years, and of course most recently had only filed a return using the newer of the two Intuit accounts. So Intuit was worried he hadn't filed a return that year on the older account and sent that email to the different email address he had previously used. Of course he could have just switched up his way of filing, using a different company, but that was beyond Intuit's imagination!

Could that be what's going on with you? Compare the email address used to send you that message about Failure to File to the email address you used with Intuit to file this year.

As long as you're sure your 2023 return was not just received but actually accepted by the IRS, and sure you owe no other money to the IRS, you can ignore the email.

really appreciate you looking into it!

I don't think I have more than one login, because I would not want to have one, unless I needed to. But is it at all possible, maybe? It has been over 20 and maybe even 25 years that I've used the product.

At any rate, my point is we're trained to not respond to phishing at work, and we are even tested and reports run. But more and more legit entities either look no different than phishing, or they are.

An example at work was they sent a fake DocuSign email to see who would respond. Thing is, some of us get real ones throughout the course of what we do at work--so now you're asking us to discern that we're not expecting one at this instant, ignore it.....

Creates jobs, huh? The infosec dept.

I have been using it for decades and the last 2 decades have used the online version and electronically file. Knock on wood, never had a problem and plan to continue using it.

Been using Turbo Tax for ages and never have a
problem.

I only started eFile'ing about 7 years ago. Prior I mailed a paper return/forms.

Why?

1. I didn't trust Turbo Tax, have no way of knowing what they filed (worksheets? Could they upload calculations? Less is more, IRS doesn't need to know all that)

2. I work in NJ and live in PA. It would always fail to allow me to upload. Until one year I said I'm going to have some beer and figure out why I can never eFile. I was driven when I saw the staggering % of eFile vs. non. It was because I get 2 sets of W2's and Turbo Tax needed to have me enter a "0.00" for NJ wages. The box was blank when uploading the W2 electronically.

Ever since then, I eFile federal, and amazingly have had a refund in as little as 8 days. Since state is not free, and taxes are always owed (it's a flat tax with no deductions, I can't think of a single scenario where a refund is due), I use Turbo Tax to generate the state forms and mail them.

I never worried about what was sent to the IRS, TT only sends the tax forms not the worksheets or anything else. That is for you if you want to see how something was calculated. Online TT did have a problem years ago, which was quickly corrected, it was saving the credentials to anything you imported using it.
Yeah, state was expensive if you electronically file, but now I live in a state that has no income tax (hence no filing requirement).

the spammers are getting more clever.

I just received an email from Turbo Tax stating that due to Microsoft ceasing to support Win 10 this October, the 2025 version will no longer be compatible with Win 10 operating systems.

Users of Win 10 will either have to upgrade to Win 11 or use the online version of Turbo Tax.

My solution to this is simple. I've always run turbotax in a sandboxed environment - win10 vm.

I will need to either update that installation to win11 or create a new win11 vm. Underlying OS will likely still be win10 unless I finally upgrade next year. Or I may go full on linux. In which case the vm method will still be used.

We have three Windows 10 computers plus a Win 10 laptop.

I've built our last 11 computers myself, but what was once a joy has become a chore, and I've procrastinated. Guess I'll have to get on the stick and either build my next one or cave in a buy a ready-made.

I’ve been using the online version of Turbo Tax for quite a while now and haven’t had any problems with it. The problem I did have was that I had been getting a good discount through the company I retired from almost 19 years ago, that discount stopped a couple years ago. I did have one hiccup back in 2017. I was doing my 2016 taxes and was asked if there had been a death in the family. My wife died February of 2017; I was doing the taxes for the previous year of 2016 and there was no death in the family in 2016, so I answered the question with a “no.” The IRS didn’t like that and sent me a letter saying that they had a record of her death. It wasn’t a big deal, I had to send a copy of her death certificate, etc.

Through the early years I built several computers for myself, the kids, etc. it was fun and not as expensive. That way I could choose which motherboard, ram, power supply, cooling fan, processor, case, hard drive, and all that stuff I preferred. The last two I bought (Dells) were plug and play, and I don’t regret it. These days I don’t need a machine that can take heavy loads, I’m not a gamer, don’t burn a lot of DVDs like I did for quite a while. These last two have been great, the only reason I bought my last one is because I was trying to upgrade my older Dell from Windows 10 to Windows 11, but couldn’t because it was too old. This last one came with the newer NVMe hard drive which I like, I did add another SSD on the side for all my personal junk in case the system crashes.

I'm the OP of this thread.

This year, for the first time in my life, I sold a substantial amount of a mutual fund that I've had since 1994.

We all know how the story goes, people my generation, don't realize that stocks can go down. From 1994, to Thursday, ultimately, they haven't. All time highs yet again.

My estimation is I'll owe $6-7k in long term capital gains. Makes me wonder if the IRS will penalize me if I wait until April 15.

In some way mutual funds are a sham, for us peons lol We don't so much as buy or sell anything, and get taxed for distributions. Long ago I had heard peons should be doing ETFs, not mutual funds, for tax efficiency. Stocks are for the big boys. The Goldman Sachs types.

The end. I'll be turning to Turbo Tax again to get me through it all.

In a similar situation I was not penalized because the mutual fund essentially didn;t submit their data until the end of the year, not necessarily at the time of the action.

Where I have been dinged, and this was a TT24 issue, is I had to send in quarterly estimated taxes. I used the address as printed on the TT printed vouchers and sent them in certified mail. In tracing the mail I found it hop skipped and jumped all over the country for about 3 weeks before it ever showed up as delivered, and to a different address. Going on line I found that the IRS had changed the mailing address for estimated tax vouchers.

In the future I’ll be checking the addresses rather than what TT provides.

our quarterly taxes using IRS Direct Pay. Easy to use and track payments.

https://www.irs.gov/payments/direct-pay-with-bank-account

I don't use certified mail, and just a year or two ago I got hit with a penalty for late payment of an estimate because the IRS logged it about a month after I sent it.

I believe in theory your mailing date is the crucial date, and you could use the certified mail evidence to contest the late payment fee. I had no evidence and could not. In any case, I've converted to electronic payment of both my Federal and state estimates going forward. I lose a few days of interest, but gain peace of mind and a clean return.

I found out last year that TT stopped updates for 32 bit. That's what I am on because my computer is running flawless. When I did the 2024 taxes I used TT on the web and FreeTax. They both came out identical except that the cost of TT was a lot higher. I filed with FreeTax.

To add to the complications, my wife and I are in the throes of deciding to move to a retirement community. So a factor of three downsize in our living space, plus much of our house is a heap of disorganized clutter.

So I decided to buy from silentpc.com I'll still have all the work of setting up applications and data on the new machine, but I'll skip the component selection and assembly work, which is no longer a joy to me.

In honor of my expected smaller living quarters, I've ordered a machine with a far smaller case than I've ever used before--mini ITX.

So this really is on topic to TurboTax, in that their threat not to give me a Windows 10 product got me to move along on getting a new PC.

yeah, long time user here too, well over 30 years. never had a problem and never purchased audit protection and never been audited. Sounds like phishing to me, don't click on any links, type it in yourself if you must.

TurboTax used to, and may still , use the independent company called TaxAudit. https://www.taxaudit.com/audit-defense/individual

TaxAudit specializes in being your up front representative in the event you are audited. So whether you spend that $50 or not is up to the individual, and may even vary year to year based on potential need. About two years ago for instance I sold some property in NY. My accountant recommended the use of the service. There was some unusual circumstances, key being my accountant was retiring. Sure enough I was audited because of the sale of the property. The $50 was very well worth it. TaxAudit provided a live representative that attended the IRS audit session in NY and I participated via zoom. Done deal after 20 minutes. I owed nothing.

Very good advise!