I have heard that if you call their customer support and complain they will offer the upgrade for free. Not a great business model but maybe worth a try if you’ve already made the purchase.
They have announced a $25 rebate. One article said that you have to file thru them, make an upgrade to file and then request the rebate.
I dropped TurdoTax several years ago because of all the bait-and-switch they do. The package led me to believe they had a Basic version, but they only offered Deluxe and Premium when I loaded the CD. They tell you Federal is free, but they don’t tell you they charge $50 to process State taxes. They also stamp on an upgrade fee after the fact. The CD wouldn’t install correctly anyway, so I managed to get my money back. I went over to H&R Block and haven’t looked back.
The next time they send me their CD, I won’t even put it in the garbage, because the garbage is too good for them.
TurboTax admits “We screwed up.” & will refund the extra $25 fee.
Looks like this is their New Coke. :smack:
They had already hiked up the price to $99 last year (IIRC) for the version that does schedule C. Customers won’t take but so much.
Intuit is the same company that was requiring their software to phone home 5 or 10 years ago, that was a big stink.
They will be back to omitting Schedule C/D in a few years.
I see they have apologized and are offering some refunds.
Too late. I bought HRB already. And I didn’t much like their response. We don’t apologize for ripping you off by removing functionality, we apologize for not telling you we were ripping you off. Next year, no refunds and I bet no Sched D.
I had no idea that the on-line version did not support Sched D. Instead of improving it, they are crippling the desktop one.
$25 does not make up the difference, btw, not to mention the hassle. Assholes.
smh Sorry, but that “apology” is even worse than what they are attempting to apologize for. I do believe I will never use a Turbo Tax/Intuit product again.
I know that they won’t miss me, but it’s the principle of the matter.
I’ve been using TaxAct for years, and even their freebie edition handles – and e-files – anything and everything in Publication 17 (which, incidentally, the IRS is no longer issuing print copies of).
They’ll refund $25 IF you used deluxe last year and bought premier this year. I bought deluxe this year (and last), so I get the choice of paying $30 or whatever to upgrade to premier and then hope that I qualify for the $25 refund based on whatever method that they use to confirm that I bought deluxe last year…
…or I can try out H&R block for free this year?
Not a hard choice.
Thanks. H&R B for me, for the first time, this year.
I used Turbo Tax online this year. It cost $72 for each of us to file federal and state, and they tried to sell all manner of crap from having the fee deducted from the refund (at the low low price of $35) to having the refund put on a prepaid Visa card (for $35) to buying an Amazon gift card for the refund.
I think we’ll be looking elsewhere next year. :mad:
Turbo Tax Premier is $54 at Amazon: I don’t find that price outlandish for a return requiring Schedules C or D. Way cheaper than an accountant. $17.50 more than H&R Block. ETA: Oh yeah: " For a sole proprietorship with more than $100 of deductions in certain categories, even Premier won’t do." Sheesh.
Anyhoo, Intuit does have a habit of yanking their customers’ chain though. This is but the latest.
Years ago, H&R Block was less comprehensive than Turbo Tax. Are the 2 products basically the same now?
I guess Turbo Tax is having other problems. This doesn’t seem to be the fault of the company, but it’s not good. Minnesota has quit accepting Turbo Tax returns.
Turbo Tax has caved and reversed the decision, by the way:
Intuit Cries Uncle, Will Reverse TurboTax Deluxe Changes
However, the Forbes article suggests that they’re having some troubles rebating the $25, with allegations of privacy breaches.
That’s Intuit for you. I worked for the bastards from January 2013 to August 31, 2014. Here’s some of things they did while I was there.
Only required last 4 digits of SS# to prove you were the primary account holder for their credit card processing services. Anyone with this information could call up and make changes to the account, including adding expensive services, hardware, etc.
Refused to refund charges for customers who were charged $12.95/month for years due to duplication errors on our end. If the customer really made a fuss, they would get the previous 3 months refunded; however, if the customer didn’t explicitly say to close the extra accounts, they would remain open. Some of these customers were being charged for 3 or more accounts.
One of our customer service reps screwed up, costing a customer $8k. There was documented reports on the customer’s file proving the screw up was on our end. The customer was told the screw up was because of our rep. Nothing was done about this; the customer was not reimbursed, the agent was not fired or even reprimanded, and his account wasn’t closed out like he requested.
Software options from previous years are constantly being removed and added to higher priced versions all the time; especially with QuickBooks. For example, QuickBooks Pro 2011 and under allows for 5 users; 2012 and higher only allows for 3.
Customer service is expensive, and you would expect quality service for $300/year; instead what you get is people from India reading a script, and then get told a lot of times that upgrading to the latest version will be the only way to fix your issue. A lot of times it won’t.
Customer service is trained to tell customers they have to purchase the software again if they lose their discs, when this isn’t true. The software is located on the website for free.
They’re slowly removing options form desktop software to force people over to the online versions so they can charge monthly fees. (Mainly QuickBooks for now; expect this to happen to Quicken and Turbotax eventually.)
In 2014 the higher ups called a company wide meeting, where they announced profits for the year to be the highest they’ve had in years. 3 hours later they called another meeting where over 300 people were laid off.
For what it’s worth, I’ve used H&R Block software for several years to file our taxes. I’m not a tax expert by any means, and I haven’t tried other tax software … but I’ve never seen a reason to do so, either.
H&R Block’s stuff works well for me, and is easy to use. I’ve never had an issue.
This pretty much describes me as well. Their customer service could make Sirius Cybernetics look like a model of courtesy and efficiency, but I’ve been using H&RB since 2002 and have never had occasion to contact them.
And in response to a previous question, I have the bottom-of-the-line federal product (no state income tax in the SoW) and it covers schedules C and D.
I got the two “apology” emails from them (mentioned above) but I’d already bought the H & R spftw as re. I guess a lot of people voted with their wallets.
I guess this is TURBO-TAXTIC!
How the heck did my auto-correct do that?! Sheesh. (And how did I not notice?)