Back when I used to use Turbo Tax, they had a section asking about HSA disbursements, so I copied the number from my 1099-HSA. I had no idea, in a totally separate, unrelated section, there was a question about how much of your disbursements was spent on medical care. I’m lucky I caught that one, otherwise I would have paid tax on all that money, as well as a penalty.
It seems to me that the page that asks about HSA disbursements could include a simple checkbox that says “Check here all or part of this money was not spent on qualified medical expenses” or something to the effect.
But, that’s just another reason why it’s not a terrible idea to do it on two different programs. It doesn’t take that much longer and it’s good for finding mistakes.
For any Canadian who happens on this thread, I recommend StudioTax. Very good and totally free, although I usually send them 25 bucks for four returns.
I’m convinced they’re all the same for the average person. So, I use the H&R Block because it already have some of the information saved. I’m sure I’ll need the ‘deluxe’ version because of…something. I’ve already accepted that I’ll be raped for the cost and plus whatever they charge for state.
And that’s why I stick with H&R block online, it saves all that crap. I hate filing taxes so at least it makes it easier. And yeah, I’m an adult with a fairly basic tax situation like I bet a lot of us are
Did you use the TurboTax standalone program rather than the website? If you did, and you saved the results as a TurboTax file (I believe the extension is “.tax{yyyy}”), the H&RB program can import it. I’m not sure about the H&RB website, and I can’t vouch for how much the program can import, but it should be enough to get you started.
I don’t have the world’s most complex tax return — SS and pension income, and the mandatory IRA distributions — but the Basic version suits me fine; I get it for less than $20. This site (not H&R Block) compares the versions.
I have to concur that this year’s TaxAct experience was less than ideal. I was very careful and my returns are fairly simple, but I did not feel confident until I double-checked everything manually. I also don’t like the constant upsell attempts, but I supposed that was the price I paid for the “free” service.
Anyway, next year I guess I’ll be in the market for one of these other solutions that folks have recommended.
When I just did mine on TA, I also did it on TT. Got almost the same numbers. It took me about 20 minutes to pick through everything and find the mistake. I can’t blame their website/software for the one, but it’s still why I advocate doing it in two places, especially if you have a lot to enter.
For me, I had about 50 lines of stock trades to enter. That works out to about 1 trade a week but makes for 300 or so entries. That’s where I made the mistake. TT could import directly from Etrade, Tax Act can’t.
In the end, I ended up using the free option from Turbo Tax, which meant I had to start all over, but I saved $70, so it was worth it.
I’ve used TaxAct for many years now, too (at one time, they were the cheapest option if you needed a Schedule C), and I had this same problem this year.
After going through the Q&A, it reported I owed a fairly hefty sum. It was only in the “check for errors” step that it bothered to ask how long my kids lived with me during the year. In past years, I’m pretty sure it confirmed this during the step where it imported dependent info from last year’s return.
Other than that, though, it’s been perfectly serviceable. But it would be possible to make a fairly expensive mistake and skip the “check for errors” step if you didn’t know something seemed amiss.
I’ve used TurboTax in the past and tried FreeTaxUsa this year. I imported in the PDF I saved from TT last year, and it did a decent job with the data you’re talking about. There were some gaps, like it populated all the dependent info except birth dates, but overall it wasn’t really more work to switch.