9 Years of TurboTax

[canyonwalker]

I'm working on my taxes this weekend. It's my aim to finish them this weekend. If I don't they'll slip at least two weeks as I'll be out of town on a weekend trip in a week.

I'm using TurboTax again, for the 9th year in a row. I quipped last week that it's an abusive relationship partner. It's time to dust off and update this oldie-but-goodie I originally posted last year:



Like I explained last year I'm kind of stuck in a situation where TurboTax does what it does, which is not quite what I want, and no alternative is better. Use another tax prep tool? They're not as accurate. Hire an accountant? Way more expensive, and less transparent. I manage my own investments and manage sales for relative tax efficiency. Do taxes myself? I'm totally able to, but it'll take a lot more time without the automation done by software. So I stay in this bad relationship.

Comments

[some_other_dave]

So, you know that unreported income I mentioned a while back? The one that the IRS sent us a "love note" about?

Turns out that the IRS also had incomplete information. In particular, they did not have the "basis" (cost to us) of the stock that had been sold, so they were tagging the entire sale price as income. But once the basis is figured in, we only owe about 5% of the amount they told us about.

Whew!!!

[canyonwalker]

Yeah, that's a much better result!