The semi-comprehensive e-mail I wrote to Intuit explains why TurboTax caused me some difficulty this year. Rather than detail it out, I figured I might as well just share the e-mail I wrote:
Intuit,
I need your help correcting my recent experience as a 6 year customer of TurboTax. I recently filed my 2008 State and Federal Tax Returns using TurboTax Deluxe Online. My taxes aren’t the most complicated, but I find that TurboTax has always been helpful in organizing my financial thoughts, and making sure I’m taking advantage of the latest deductions.
This year, my E-Filing was successful without any difficulty. I received a notification that my Federal return had been accepted by the IRS the same day I completed my filing (02/17/2009). A day later, I received an e-mail from TurboTax indicating that my 2008 State return was accepted, but that an “Extra Form” was required.
The e-mail indicated that I needed to send in an “extra Form” via mail to my state. The E-mail made no indication of which form to file, nor where to send it. The E-mail simply said I could find the form amongst the papers that TurboTax printed for me.
No such form, or instructions exist in the printed documents, or the PDF. I re-downloaded my return from TurboTax.com to be sure.
Once I was sure that no additional forms or instructions could be found, I used the TurboTax support site to get an Incident number (xxxxxxxx) and a phone number to call. I spoke with a representative who spent exactly 25 minutes speaking with her supervisor about navigating help on the TurboTax Website. At the end of the call, she indicated that perhaps there was a bug in the TurboTax software, but she isn’t sure. She told me that I should call the State Tax commission myself, and review my documents with them to make sure the Form TurboTax has told me I need to fill out, isn’t missing.
I currently have no confidence that the Turbo Tax STATE product has properly filled out my tax information. TurboTax has told me that I am missing forms which NEED to be submitted to my state, but TurboTax is unable to tell me what forms I must fill out, or where to send them. I have spent the last 2 1/2 hours working with the State tax commission’s forms and website, as well as other state tax payers to determine what forms I may or may not be missing.
I am requesting a full refund for the TurboTax State Product, which according to my order is $26.97 after tax. I am not requesting a refund for the TurboTax Federal product, as it has so far proven to be accurate and satisfactory.
I look forward to your response.
XXXXXXXXX
What’s really funny about this is that the phone call, which I didn’t feel I need to berate in the above email, was absolutely awful. It’s actually a lot worse than the e-mail let’s on. She points me to several forms that could be the culprit, all of which the state forms clearly say “Don’t fill this out unless you’re a millionaire disabled leper on welfare”. Needless to say, that’s not me.
Naturally, knowing the phone call was going to be golden, I recorded it. if there is any interest I’ll see about “beeping” out the personal information and posting it on the website.
Update (2:03 PM MST, 02/20/2009):
TurboTax responded to my e-mail today, nearly 48 hours after I originally sent it. The e-mail contained this:
Dear XXXXXXX,
Thank you for contacting TurboTax Customer Service & Support.
I understand that you will like a refund for the state product. I will need you to call so, Turbo Tax can confirm information over the phone. I do apologize for the inconvenience.
You may receive a survey from us through e-mail in approximately 24 hours asking you about my performance on today’s contact, as well as comments you may have in regards to the TurboTax product. So we can continue with our promise to provide our customers with the best support available, please take a few minutes to complete the survey.
Respectfully,
XX_XXXXX
So, apparently after waiting two days for my personalized e-mail response, I need to call in and get my issue taken care of. What number do I call?
Turns out, in order to get a support number you have to go to turbotax.com and fill out a brief support ticket to get the phone number. Shame I didn’t write it down the last time I called.
I called and after 15 minutes of holding, a nice lady (surely based in India, unlike the last one) spent another 15 minutes conferring with her supervisor (about what, I don’t know… there was no discussion of why I was requesting a refund) and finally issued me a confirmation number.
Sweet victory. After only over an hours worth of phone-call holding, and 2 1/2 hours of State tax form research, I have $26.20 on my way back. I’m not sure what happened to the other $0.77 in my refund… but I wasn’t going to argue.
I have used Turbo Tax for at least 7 years and have not had any problems. This year, I downloaded my state but it wouldn’t allow me to actually fill in any info. Whenever I clicked on start return, it kept going back and downloading it again. I did chat with someone from there online and they gave me a link to download and it took care of the problem; but I had a long wait – 85 people were in front of me. It took about 45 minutes to get a response.
P.S. I’VE USED TURBOTAX SINCE THEY SOLD IT ON A DISK) WHICH I BELIEVE WAS 1996 OR 1997 AND I’VE NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS; IT SADDENS ME THAT TECH SUPPORT CAN NOT CORRECT THESE ISSUES AND THAT SO MANY USERS ARE HAVING COMPLICATIONS THAT AREN’T BEING RESOLVED. I NEVER THOUGHT I’D SEE THE DAY WHERE INTUIT WOULD BE A PRODUCT THAT HAD THIS MANY ISSUES EVEN THOUGH THIS IS SOFTWARE FOR 2009 (4 YRS OLD) MAKES ME WONDER IF I SHOULD SWITCH TO ANOTHER PRODUCT AND I USE THIS S/W FOR AT LEAST 20 RETURNS A YEAR.
I’M DOING AN OVERDUE RETURN FOR A FRIEND AND INPUT ALL OF THE DATA INTO TURBOTAX 2009 AND WHEN I WENT TO PRINT IT GAVE ME THE ERROR THAT IT NEEDS TO UPDATE THESE MISSING FORMS WHICH WERE ALL OF THE MAIN FORMS 4562; SCHEDULE A; 1040; SCHEDULE E, pg1; FORM 8582 pg1; SCHEDULE E, p2. AT START UP IT TELLS ME THESE FORMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE BUT WILL BE SOON???? FUNNY THING IS THAT IT DIDN’T DO THIS TO ME WHEN I FIRST IINPUT THE DATA; I EVEN SAVED THE FILE AND CAME BACK TO IT SO I DON’T KNOW WHY OR WHERE THE PROGRAM LOST THESE FORMS (SPOKE TO TURBOTAX REP & SHE BELIEVES IT WAS IN AN UPDATE) IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO FIX THIS I’D BE MORE THAN GRATEFUL AS I NEED TO COMPLETE THESE SO I CAN DO THE OTHER 2 YRS AND I’VE ALREADY SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON THESE RETURNS. THANKS
I used Turbo Tax twice. The first time I used it, it was smooth. I had no problem forking out $39.99 (I think, it was 3 years ago). The second time I thought it would be the same price since they already had my record, turns out I paid for more! It was misleading on the site for repeat customers. I hope they do something about it. This last year I did my tax manually on my own. I might come back to Turbo if they are clear about the policy.
They totally ripped me off — did not say I had to submit both my returns at the same time (though they charged me for both) and then I was unable to make any changes to my other return online, which was not yet finalized. Then in speaking to support and following their instructions I managed to lose all data from both returns. Despite this they refused to reimburse or credit me for the lost return. Apparently it is company policy! So, after using Quicktax (now Turbotax) for at least the last 5 years, I will not touch it again, nor will I recommend it to others as I had been doing in the past.
I was privileged to be a part of the Intuit TurboTax Beta Test team again this year.
Over 600 beta testers tested all facets of TurboTax functionality to achieve a high
quality product for 2009.
I have personally used TurboTax software since 1996. The TurboTax Deluxe version
will support all the forms generally needed to prepare your federal 1040 tax return.
E-filing the federal return is free with TurboTax Deluxe and insures the highest
accuracy and fastest refund. The purchase price includes a free state return
software package which can be downloaded from within TurboTax Deluxe. State tax
return can also be e-filed for an additional charge, or printed for you to file by
mail.
TurboTax Deluxe does not support the business tax returns for a corporation (Form
1120, 1120S), the partnership return (Form 1065), nor the estate and trust tax
return (Form 1041). TurboTax Deluxe will support Schedule C and Schedule SE for
experienced taxpayers with a sole proprietorship or the LLC treated as a disregarded
entity. Those taxpayers who have never done a Schedule C before may wish to use
TurboTax Home and Business for the more robust Schedule C support provided in the
guided interview. Taxpayers who need to prepare a corporate return, a partnership
tax return, or an estate and trust tax return will need TurboTax Business.
http://bit.ly/cQ6ccB
TurboTax Deluxe will also handle Schedule D and Schedule E preparation. Users that
are new to Schedule D or Schedule E, or experienced users with more complex stock
transactions or rental property issues, will find more detailed assistance in the
guided interview with TurboTax Premier.
As good as the guided interview is, you may still have a unique situation that
requires additional assistance. TurboTax provides a link to the TurboTax Live
Community. If you need to ask how to solve a tax reporting problem, post your
question to the Live Community and get quick feedback from a resource pool of
thousands of actual TurboTax users on how to resolve your tax question.
I had my taxes done with turbo tax this year there was a mistake in my taxes which I spent 4 hours trying to fix it the representative I spoke with was very helpful though we did not figure this mess out I was promised a full refund and now I am waiting for my refund I hope they are still refunding me.
I just spent 2 hours filling in information on the web site and at the end, the program got hung at the State portion.
The TT site says Updating and it has been saying that for 15 mintes. My return was not mathematically complex so apparently it crashed my return.
It was a waste of time. Now I am going to have to download the forms and do it myself. I have had it with online preparation.Turboo Tax is no damn good
Turbo Tax this year is just plain garbage. It doesn't work half the time, there is virtually no tech support and no one at Untuit seems to care. After 10 years of using their tax software, NEVER AGAIN!
fArt, maybe $79 but hours of work, what percentage of the money one has left over after a year should be allocated for tax preparation fArt?
I have successfully used Turbo Tax for over ten years now; I own a primary residence and three rental properties. I handles all the issues including depreciation of the properties, etc.
I am sorry other folks have had unpleasant experiences. There is a reason why consumers want to only pay $79 to have their taxes completed.
Yeah, well TurboTax really effed me at first I used the "Free Edition" i am just about done when my refund goes from $800 to $99….I am already mad….then it tells me I have to pay them 29.89 or some BS just to file the taxes…I say whatever just fu*^#$% do it….THEN they proceed to charge me OVER $60 I AM ONLY GETTING $99 BACK, but as before I was done just fu*&^%^ do it…(the extra 30 was to have them direct deposit my return) a month after I file I keep getting emails saying they have not received my money blah blah blah then today i get a letter from the IRS I now OWE THEM $193.12 all I have to say is when I used H & R block last year more or less the same god da%@ taxes I got around $1000 back, When I find a number I will let them know about my frustrations. believe me
The simple fact that TurboTax states that one can file for free is incorrect. I spent 2+ hours filing my taxes, came to the last page and was requested to pay 120.00 to file at the end. My time is money and it was wasted! I would not recommend this to anyone. Should have known better!
I read your report on how Intuit helped you out on taxes. I have had a problem with Turbo Tax in their program. I got an error message regarding Adobe Flash Player which they use in their program. I have been unable to find an e-mail address that can address the problem. If I send it comes back as "an unmonitered e-mail" so I get no answer. Can you e-mail the address that You used in your deal. I would appreciate it very much,
Thanks,
Tim Kennedy
boys98@cox.net
Turbo tax keep telling me I am single the software will not let me put my wifes information in only mine…. hummmmmm I think I will try H & R Block this year…. Turbo tax is getting to the point they apparently don't give a poop anymore..
Why would they even bother having a MySpace page? Their support flat out sucks. Maybe they should redirect some of their resources.
Maybe you should talk about it on their myspace page.
That's exactly how I felt! Why on earth would I call my state to ask why TurboTax sent me an e-mail?
That's just plain retarded. Then again, so was the agent on the phone.
Yeah turbo tax support is garbage… I contacted them to let them know one of their imports from one of my banks was incorrect and was screwing up my returns… They told me to contact the bank and let them know their feeds dont work with turbo tax…
I'm pretty sure that thats their job… not mine… the product is nice, but their support sucks..
Apparently you have no political ambitions because you are paying your taxes. How are you ever going to get a cabinet appointment doing that crap?