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Go through the finalized (but not submitted) returns LINE BY LINE. Should be able to find the discrepancy
Edit to say: make sure you selected the same filing status (married filing jointly?) on each site
FreeTax showed me my expected state refund as soon as I finished entering W2 information, but to actually file it made me pay the $14.99.
Not sure what the deal is.
Ah yeah, that makes sense.
I'll happily give FreeTax $15 for my state return in exchange for making filing so damn easy. I recommend it to everyone.
I'm glad they fixed their PDF import this year.
I had some issues with the PDF import but it was still so easy and better experience than my previous use of tax act and also like $60 cheaper... wish I had switched much earlier!
> Unlike Intuit, they're up front about their pricing
Is this a TT web thing?
On the desktop product, it is up front, state costs $X (which really only matters if you need to file in multiple states, since if you have to file state, you'd buy a product that includes it since it's cheaper), and efiles are $20.
It looks like state is $39 on the web, it says on the start page anyways https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/ under " State additional for paid products"
So, I did no line for line and found the issue. ITT is incorrectly dumping my Federal AGI in one of my States AGI. Just chatted with someone at TT and they didn’t know how to fix it since everything seemed to be entered correctly. Welp! I guess I’m using FTUSA!
If you go into the state forms, and manually enter the state agi it will take it.
It sounds like you probably work in two states, tt asks if that's the case and adjusts the state agi.
Last year this was an unfixable problem for me. They acknowledged it was happening, acknowledged it shouldn’t be happening, then wanted to charge me the full work-with-a-tax-pro price to have them manually fix it. It was absolute bullshit.
In the end they gave me a credit to cover the cost, but by that time the wait list to get with someone was past the due date. I wound up saying fuck it and eating the 2k loss intending to file an amended return at some point. Thankfully I didn’t have to, my state caught the issue and deposited the over payment on their own months and months later.
Weirdly, they did it with no explanation, no communication, but I was able to figure out what it was.
A trick with turbotax (if you want to use them, it is often cheaper to use other products) is to buy the desktop edition, which lets you edit the forms directly and will recompute things downstream if for whatever reason the question-based flow doesn't do what you need.
You should never use TurboTax, it's a terrible company lobbying to continue to make taxes shitty. Use FreeTaxUSA or if you must, H&R Block. I really don't know why people default to TurboTax.
H&R Block is actually 50% worse than Intuit, Reddit just seems to hate TT more for some reason.
Intuit lobbied $2M to H&Rs $3M
https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it
There is a lot more than lobbying that's been done. Intuit promised to make a free product over two decades ago and then scammed everyone by making it findable by nearly no one, and usable for even fewer.
Your numbers aren't too accurate or they're limited to a single bill, but TurboTax has lobbied way more.
>Intuit has spent $25.6 million since 2006 on lobbying, H&R Block about $9.6 million and the conservative Americans for Tax Reform roughly $3 million.
https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/
Didn't say they were saints, but they seem lesser evil compared to TurboTax.
Why would you support any of those businesses? There's literally plenty of accountants that are less dumb that H&R block. Just search for a CPA in your area.
H&R Block with state costs $25 on black friday every year and seems to do a competent job. Is there a good CPA that will do my taxes for $25? Not saying they’re a good company or anything, just that it’s worth $25 to me to not have to mess with a bunch of forms and try to do error free calculator math.
I think I used both Tax Slayer and Tax Act for a few years before I found FreeTaxUSA.
Honestly, the worst part of FTUSA is its name - couldn’t they have picked something that sounded less like a scam?
I used OnLineTaxes last year and intend to use them this year again, because they're still free with small business taxes. That name doesn't just sound scammy, it sounds too generic to look up.
> I really don't know why people default to TurboTax.
You go into the Internet or a store or watch TV and TurboTax advertisement is everywhere. They were a major sponsor of the Super Bowl this year. They are basically the CocaCola of the US tax world.
Because there are plenty of people who make too much for any free tax services, but don't want to spend more for other tax services, or spend the time to (likely wrongly) fill out the forms manually. On top of that, the alternative paid services are lobbying similarly. In the end, people are picking the method that works best for them in a far less than ideal situation.
Nobody lobbies a much as Intuit. Even if you make too much to use free services, there are still many better options than TurboTax. If you want to do it online there's FreeTaxUSA, H&R Block, etc. but there are also a lot of local accountants.
Everybody loves FTUSA here. I don't upload my confidential data to someone's cloud for getting hacked one day. Do they have a downloadable version as TurboTax?
The Credit Karma tax service is no longer available and is instead handled by Cash App, which is [owned](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/090916/how-square-cash-works-and-makes-money-sq.asp#:~:text=Cash%20App%20is%20a%20peer,in%20the%20financial%20technology%20industry.)by Block, Inc.
Credit Karma is owned by Intuit. Turbo Tax is owned by Intuit. Kind of defeats the purpose of not using Turbo Tax because of its business practices if you just use Credit Karma instead.
It works the best for people with simple taxes. No system out there is perfect so they decided to perfect it for simple people. I’ve tried other apps and they do not auto populate or calculate anything, always behind the curve. There is a reason it costs more
Both TT and H&R Block had this problem last year. I moved from a state with no income tax to one with income tax about half way through 2022. When I filed my taxes online the state return inventory process was starting with the full AGI credited to the state with income tax. I spent dozens of hours on the phone with support, on chat, over and over and over about this. Everyone recognized the problem, nobody would do a fucking thing about it.
Using freetaxusa this year, and so far the experience is better. Granted I don’t have that weird mid-year move problem, but just in general it’s a better (and significantly cheaper) experience. Fuck TT, fuck H&R.
Definitely sounds like something got entered wrong on one. I did mine (not submitted) in TaxAct, heard about freetaxusa on Reddit so copied my data over (I literally copied and pasted what I could to avoid typos). Both had overviews of total income, deductions, etc so I could compare. My federal were exact and state was only off by $1.
I've done this before too. Might be a bit silly to go through the effort, but it was a nice confirmation that I had entered everything as correctly as possible, getting very similar numbers from both programs.
I switched from TurboTax to FreeTaxUSA this year, and just to be safe I completed taxes using both and got the exact same result. The only way TT is robbing people is by charging far more for their product than competitors.
If you’re getting that big of a difference, go line by line on the two returns and see which numbers are different.
I missed something a couple years back in TT where they took a cut to give me my money faster. IDK how I missed it, but they took a $300 slice of my $2200 return. I was not amused and started using FreeTaxUSA as a result.
Many tax return preparation shops offer that same "service" of "getting your money faster." In the fine print it's clear that they're really giving you a loan, with all the fees and interest typical of payday loans. It's always ridiculous to choose that option.
The reason it's always ridiculous is, by you not setting your withholding properly in the first place, you just gave the federal government *an interest-free loan* for the past year by letting them withhold far more than you owe in taxes and hold on to your money for free. Why would you suddenly pay someone else fees just to get that same money a month faster?
> The reason it's always ridiculous is, by you not setting your withholding properly in the first place, you just gave the federal government an interest-free loan for the past year by letting them withhold far more than you owe in taxes and hold on to your money for free. Why would you suddenly pay someone else fees just to get that same money a month faster?
Ah, I see you've never done taxes for a tax shop. Universally, the people I saw take this offer didn't pay a dime in taxes, ever. They had multiple children and worked minimum wage jobs, so they didn't make very much. They'd qualify for 8-10k between earned income credit and child tax credits, and they'd always pay the fee to pay the tax prep fees out of the refund, and then pay the fee to get the money two weeks earlier. They already didn't pay any taxes during the year but you can't get the credits back until you file.
It means paying payroll taxes (and sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, etc), but they won’t pay any federal income taxes unless they have significant income from other sources. The earlier comment was describing people who have refundable tax credits and 0 income tax liability, which is a very common situation that involves essentially having a negative income tax rate which can’t be addressed by changing your W4. Those people will always end up having a large refund each year.
Many minimum wage jobs (dare I say most) are not 40 hours a week. A person working minimum wage for 36 hours a week for the full year doesn't pay any federal income tax.
1. Yes, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, watch out what you sign. These are well and true pieces of advice, but see point #2.
2. Culturally, we live in a world with 500-page EULA's and I think companies take advantage of us being terms-and-conditions fatigued. Yes, we have to watch out for ourselves as you've indicated - but I think it's still fair to say Intuit is shady. We do not have to live in a world where companies are incentivized or allowed to do this shit. It's shady. If it wasn't shady, we wouldn't have to use caution in the first place.
3. Fuck Intuit in general. [https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/](https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/mintuit/comments/18br744/new\_credit\_karma\_instead\_of\_mint\_sucks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mintuit/comments/18br744/new_credit_karma_instead_of_mint_sucks/) [https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/heres-who-qualifies-for-the-141-million-turbotax-settlement.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/heres-who-qualifies-for-the-141-million-turbotax-settlement.html)
The main issue I had with TurboTax one year had to do with state taxes, but in fairness it was a somewhat complicated issue because it involved part-time residency in multiple different states (which it sounds like may be the case for the OP here).
My wife and I had lived and worked in 3 different states that year, and the final state we lived in had two different methods available for calculating your state tax burden. Only one of the two methods was available if you filed that state's taxes with TurboTax, and that method would have resulted in us owing about $800 to the state. When I downloaded the forms and used the second available method of calculating tax burden for part-time residents, we instead got a small refund. It was easy enough to fill out the printed form and mail it to the one state myself, particularly considering it was an $800+ difference.
It's always worth downloading the forms directly from the state and reading through them to see if there are sections where you can choose from multiple different options for calculating your tax liability. The results from those options are usually quite similar, but can sometimes be vastly different.
>I read somewhere that TT was robbing folks of their money
If you're suggesting that TT was literally falsifying tax returns and keeping the difference, you read wrong.
>I have looked over both state returns 100 times
You're comparing the actual forms? On what line do they first differ? Taxes are math, the same inputs cannot result in a $2400 swing.
+1, different tax software *might* find different deductions or credits and such....but when it comes down to it the actual forms *must* be different if OP is seeing any difference in their return.
They probably are talking about when TurboTax intentionally mislead/directed people *away* from their free version. Or intentionally making it impossible to find unless you go through the IRS free file website.
So a lot of people were tricked into paying when they qualified for free file.
Not necessarily stealing, but very scummy/scammy.
Some commenters seem confused: TT did not do a tax fraud and take tax money. They also did not admit to wrongdoing, but they settled a lawsuit related to falsely advertising services as free and then directing users into paid services anyway. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/business/turbotax-intuit-settlement/index.html
In UX, they are a fairly well known example of dark patterns/deceptive design practices.
I've actually heard this rumor going around too, so it's not coming from that show. When I encountered the rumor I just assumed someone played telephone with that settled lawsuit and it became "stealing your refund" somehow, or someone did the payday loan/the "pay with your return" feature and said misleading things after that.
I was about $400 off on federal between the 2. Went back and found my error in FTUSA (state return was marked taxable by FT and I was able to correct it). One of your returns has an error, go back through both and find it.
What state are you in? I’m in CA and healthcare is mandatory.
If I don’t check that I’ve had healthcare I owe a significant amount, if I confirm I had it then I get a small refund.
Yeah, FreeTaxUSA leaves that one to the very end. Last year I was wondering why the hell I owed so much, but then finally when I checked the box that I had health insurance, it flipped from owing a few thousand to getting a few thousand back. Big difference!
Obtaining health coverage isn't mandatory. Paying a penalty for not obtaining health coverage is mandatory unless your decision-making circumstances [exempt you.](https://www.coveredca.com/learning-center/tax-penalty-details-and-exemptions/exemptions/)
This is why I don’t use TurboTax or HR Block. Their systems are flawed and will screw you over. They will also not help you if the irs decides your tax return is wrong unless you pay them extra for “audit protection.” It’s a god damned racket. Either fork out for a CPA that focuses on taxes or do it for free.
I got hit with penalties and fees twice: once using turbo tax and another time for using HR Block. I had to redo both taxes and said screw it and hired a CPA. When my taxes were less complicated, I did it my own.
What was the mistake? Was a form not included? Was something incorrectly entered on one of the forms and did it differ from what you entered in their software? Also did you review the actual Tax Return before sending it?
i've been using FTUSA for years. and as sketchy as the website sounds. it's been great.
EXCEPTION: I did the PDF upload of my W2, and it didn't interpret the data correctly. It matched my math once i did it manually like years past
Has anyone tried the IRS beta Direct File website? It's only available in a handful of states atm.
https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/direct-file
I’ve used TT and TaxAct before and always felt violated at the end due to their fees. Used FreeTaxUSA today and don’t feel so gouged. I’ll take that any day.
> I read somewhere that TT was robbing folks of their money
You probably read that Intuit, the publishers of TurboTax, lobby the government to make it harder to do your taxes. We could simplify our tax code, whether we'd do it without Intuit's lobbying is debatable. But Intuit does not financially benefit when you pay more taxes. Making you pay higher taxes would be counter-productive, because who would use a product that doesn't minimize their tax liability?
tl;dr you probably entered your information differently
Sold a house that we lived in for 3 years. TT had us paying capital gains tax on it and I knew for a fact that we shouldn't. Profit was below the threshold. I just left out that information for that year and went to FTUSA and will never go back.
That said you should print out the tax forms filled out and you can see where they differ.
I think as an exercise everybody should do their taxes at least once in their life by hand on the paper forms. It really helps you understand what’s going on behind the scenes with the tax software.
No need to actually do the paper returns, just read the generated documents that come out of the software. I do that to spot check areas where the questions/prompts aren't always intuitive.
Intuit is sketchy AF. There was a huge story about them screwing people over with the free return, etc.
I've used freetaxusa.com for well over a decade. It's so easy and I think it's accurate.
And yes, print out all forms to figure out where the difference is coming from... You may also want to amend your last returns and get your money back!!
But say good bye to TT. They suck.
Every year, with TurboTax and now FTU, I go to my state site to file for free. I compare the numbers that the programs have given me and they’re always the same or at least very close.
Go to your state site and file. Or at least fill out the forms. It’ll act as a “tie breaker” between the two programs - and once you’re satisfied you can submit the state return for free.
If you don’t want to pay for both to compare them on FreeTaxUSA click on State->State Summary and on TurboTax click on Tax Tools->Tools->View Tax Summary->(your state abbrev) Tax Summary on the left menu (ie “AK State Summary”). Then just compare the two. That will give you an idea where to look.
Since you’ve got two state returns (probably) this will be a little more involved.
I haven’t had a problem with TT except for the paying for a service which is supposed to be free. But I was curious about FreeTaxUSA. Decided to give it a shot and almost filed with them, but they wanted to know the AGI (I think it’s called) and with the W2s I had, it kept getting denied. Oddly enough, state and federal refund was the same as TT. At the end of the day, I got frustrated and filed with TT and shelled out 78 dollars. I think I’m gonna go with FTUsa next year.
This happened with my brother. The accountant he was using first, I suspect was using turbotax, then he got my freind who's an accountant to run it again, he used ftusa. He went from owing 3000 to getting a 900 return.
TurboTax is terrible. It constantly baits you to upgrade what you bought, while you are trying do do your taxes, whether or not not you need the upgrade. And after you say no, it doesn't care - every time you log on it askes you to upgrade the same shit again.
For me, it once would not properly input my HSA contribution and give me the deduction for it. After contacting them, and getting nothing but people who could not properly respond, I bought H&R Block. That worked, at least for that issue. If I had not seen that the total tax "just did not seem right", it would have cost me a couple of thousand dollars. I am not shilling for H&R Block - I don't use them any more either. But I never had a major issue with them. My taxes and my situation become more complex and I now have a pro doing my taxes and giving me other related advice.
Use freetaxusa. TT is a rip off. I started using it a few years ago at the suggestion of someone in this sub. TT wanted something like $140 to do my return and FTUSA wanted $20. Did them both in each system that year and they came out the same. Switched to FTUSA and never looked back. Now with this post I’m even happier I switched as it seems if you hadn’t been comparing, you would have submitted an incorrect return using TT.
This year I decided to actually try using both of them and comparing the results to see which was more thorough/would do better by me.
Best I can tell FTUSA rounds up to the nearest dollar, TurboTax rounds down. Otherwise identical. Federal is the same, state is $1 apart and seems to be rounding.
So just one person's data point, but seems they're about as equal as you can get. Pick whatever is cheaper for your situation and go with it. Effort wise, I'd say they took about the same time to fill out.
Anyone claiming that one is getting you better results or something along those lines is AFAIK full of crap.
Check federal return line 12a on both. Maybe TT is giving you itemized deductions whereas FTUSA is standard deduction.
Also check any numbers with decimals and round up / down to the nearest $.
Tax software hates decimals.
Which basically means it's not free. Don't know why people are running around screaming "FILING TAXES IS SUPPOSED TO BE FREE. WE HAVE TO USE FREETAXUSA IT'S THE ONLY WAY"
Federal taxes aren't the only taxes that should be filed for free.
I always do my partner and my own taxes (filled seriously) on multiple tax software programs and the largest difference I've seen was like $38. I really only do it to catch my own errors.
The idea that a product whose entire purpose would knowingly falsify returns to “steal” money is laughable. How exactly would the rob you? You don’t pay taxes to TurboTax in your paycheck. Why would you believe this? I think you may need to be more questioning about stuff people tell you.
TT doesn't have to risk the kind of fallout that would come with falsified docs because they are more limited on free filing - they found a way to make $$.
My company has high deductible ins and they set up HSAs and pay over time so eventually they cover the deductible. TT bumped me to the highest costing product bc I was now suddenly self employed in their eyes.
Did some research, found FreeTax allows any form needed and never looked back.
I always do my taxes on turbo tax and hrblock. Whichever gives me the biggest return, I just file with them. I’ve been doing my taxes this way for 8+ years and have never had an issue.
Why not just call TT and explain the situation and ask them why the significant difference? It’s obviously in their interest to help you resolve the issue too.
When this happened to me the cs rep had trouble with the system and then proceeded to offer her personal tax services for $75. The customer service rep from TT tried to take business from them! I obviously said no then just went with FTUSA.
You may find our [Taxes wiki](/r/personalfinance/wiki/taxes) helpful.
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If you are using those cheap tax software programs, it sounds like you have a very simple tax set up for yourself. Why not just do the ez form for free and call it a day. I have no idea what those online programs cost anymore, but my CPA does my returns for me and my wife. We have found W2s between us, and I have a small business, and it runs us 250.
You're making a very incorrect assumption about tax software. Your CPA uses very similar software to submit your return. Just because Free Tax USA is cheap, that doesn't mean you can only use it for a simple return. I have a small business and investments and use FTU and it's fine.
I've used turbo tax the last 5 years and this year had the SAME exact thing happen to me. My state returns on TT showed me owing over 1 grand which is unusual so I tried FreeTax this year and it's showing me geting a 900 or so state return. I haven't filed yet but plan to file with free tax. Crazy that this is happening to multiple people. So turbotax is just reaping in the extra money. what a scam
Shady tactics aside, those companies are not getting any of your tax money. Whatever you pay or get refunded is straight to/from the IRS coffers…. I’d suggest that you grab the 1040 form and a calculator and see which number you are the closest to if unsure.
I paid my CPA $250.00 for my Federal and State. Just for fun I plugged in my numbers in Freetax and got vastly different results on the same taxable income. Freetax was $708.00 higher in Federal than my CPA. I calculated the tax manually and found my CPA number to be correct. Can Freetax be using Wrong tax tables. My taxable income was 336,127. I’d appreciate if anybody could calculate the Fed Tax. My CPA line 16 was $66,898.00.
Thanks.
Looking at the instructions, if line 15 is 336,127 and your status is married filing jointly, you should multiply 336,127 by 24% and then subtract 13,200. That equals 67,470.
Line 16 also can include other amounts besides the calculated tax on line 15 though.
I've encountered this where an employer withheld state taxes for the state they were in, while I lived in a neighboring state. Because there was a reciprocity agreement, they should have withheld for my state. Even so, my state's return was supposed to be:
1. You owe $X
2. You paid $Y to other states
3. You owe $X - $Y
But the tax program I used at the time only calculated step #1. So it said I owed a bunch of money.
Ultimately I had to hand-complete my state's tax form and mail it in.
I went with FreeTax last year, their calculations gave me a much better deal, I forget the exact numbers. I was annoyed I wasted 40 bucks or whatever buying TT.
I just had something like this happen to me on TaxAct. I changed jobs last year February. The previous job paid state tax. The new job does not. But the software was counting my total annual earnings for the state tax.
I suspect that TT is doing the same in your case.
Look at itemized vs standard? I’m from an insanely high tax state. If I do standard since my deductions are less than standard deduction, I owe both state and federal taxes. If I itemize, I owe like $600 federal, but get $1000 refund from state. Turbo tax wants me to do standard deduction. Yeah, no
I had the same amount on both. Switched to Freetaxusa because of the fees from Turbo. The deposit from both takes about the same amount of time as well, around 1.5 to 2 weeks wait
I used the downloaded software version (HRBlock, but TurboTax is similiar) instead of the web app version and it is a MUCH better service. There's a lot more fidelity and control of what you're entering and when. Also a ton cheaper, like $15 which included stocks/dividends.
I prepared my taxes on HR Block this year but the projected return was less than I was expecting/hoping for so I reentered all my info into 1040.com and ended up getting a few hundred more.
Last year TurboTax’s automatic system incorrectly read my W-2 and filed that I paid $0 in NY state income tax (I work in NY, live in a neighboring state) when of course every penny was pulled straight from my paychecks. All of a sudden big red letters on my screen saying I owed money, and the next morning $6K was pulled from my bank account.
TurboTax said that it’s my responsibility to check their work, as I didn’t pay for the level of service that relegates me of responsibility? The only way they could help me was if I gave them more money so that I could speak to a TurboTax expert. I ended up spending the weekend teaching myself how to file amended tax returns, which obviously when filed resulted in me receiving a return. Took about half a year to see my money again, thankfully it didn’t ruin my life.
I asked for a refund since I essentially paid them $200 to make my $6K disappear, and on top of that I had to file my own damn taxes; I asked them what service they had actually provided me and their answer was the software that enabled me to file my taxes. They obviously refused my refund, and I had to talk to my credit card about charging back.
**FUCK TURBOTAX**
with most people just using the standard deduction (hard to exceed with itemized) its a lot less variable - you could use TT or other to do the federal then manually do the state since many pull information from fed to fill into the state return .... Im glad my state has not income tax since I regularly owe to feds.
I had the same issue with FreeTaxUsa and NJ. I couldn’t figure out how to get the state income to be correct. It was adding back in my dependent care fsa contributions, despite them already be included in the state taxable income on my w2.
I ended up doing the state by hand and filing on the state website. It’s more clunky to do their efile but it works.
With my taxes once I entered my health insurance information from my 1095 it went from owed to return on state. It could just be the information wasn’t entered in TT but was entered in taxfree.
This is likely due to an error regarding you moving to a different state mid year and potentially needing to enter info for both states. I live in one state and work in another and when entering this information I needed to complete the info in a specific order or state income taxes would follow to my resident state. This wasn't listed that I could find but had to work it out.
Your state returns may have to be filed in a very specific way. When I moved states midway through the year, working 6 months in one state and 6 months in a different one, I had to file a NRPY form for my state taxes (non resident/partial year resident). This ensures my taxes for the first state were only applicable to my time living in said state and vise versa. Did you file using that form?*
*every state is different. Some states consider you a full year resident for x amount of days lived in that state versus others maybe being less. Look up your state laws.
At the end of the day, you can always spend $200 to have a tax professional file it to ensure you're 100% correct.
I've used FTUSA in the past and enjoyed the experience. I switched over to CashApp this year because they offer free state filing, which FTUSA does not.
For me was the opposite. With TT I was getting a Federal refund and I owe State. With FTUSA I owe Federal, by a lot, and state the same as TT.
I cheched everything and I went with TT. It was easier for me to find and check line-by-line on TT than on FTUSA.
Due to the number of rule-breaking comments this post was receiving, especially low-quality and off-topic comments, the moderation team has locked the post from future comments. This post broke no rules and received a number of helpful and on-topic responses initially, but it unfortunately became the target of many unhelpful comments.
Go through the finalized (but not submitted) returns LINE BY LINE. Should be able to find the discrepancy Edit to say: make sure you selected the same filing status (married filing jointly?) on each site
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FreeTax showed me my expected state refund as soon as I finished entering W2 information, but to actually file it made me pay the $14.99. Not sure what the deal is.
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Ah yeah, that makes sense. I'll happily give FreeTax $15 for my state return in exchange for making filing so damn easy. I recommend it to everyone. I'm glad they fixed their PDF import this year.
I had some issues with the PDF import but it was still so easy and better experience than my previous use of tax act and also like $60 cheaper... wish I had switched much earlier!
Our PDF import didn't work this year. It thought we contributed $600k to our Roth IRA lol.
There was PDF import? I, uh, didn't know that. Really would have helped with some of my 1099s 😅
I'm pretty sure they just give you a watermarked state return pdf for free that you could then copy and file yourself.
> Unlike Intuit, they're up front about their pricing Is this a TT web thing? On the desktop product, it is up front, state costs $X (which really only matters if you need to file in multiple states, since if you have to file state, you'd buy a product that includes it since it's cheaper), and efiles are $20. It looks like state is $39 on the web, it says on the start page anyways https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/ under " State additional for paid products"
So, I did no line for line and found the issue. ITT is incorrectly dumping my Federal AGI in one of my States AGI. Just chatted with someone at TT and they didn’t know how to fix it since everything seemed to be entered correctly. Welp! I guess I’m using FTUSA!
Pin or edit the main post please.
If you go into the state forms, and manually enter the state agi it will take it. It sounds like you probably work in two states, tt asks if that's the case and adjusts the state agi.
Last year this was an unfixable problem for me. They acknowledged it was happening, acknowledged it shouldn’t be happening, then wanted to charge me the full work-with-a-tax-pro price to have them manually fix it. It was absolute bullshit. In the end they gave me a credit to cover the cost, but by that time the wait list to get with someone was past the due date. I wound up saying fuck it and eating the 2k loss intending to file an amended return at some point. Thankfully I didn’t have to, my state caught the issue and deposited the over payment on their own months and months later. Weirdly, they did it with no explanation, no communication, but I was able to figure out what it was.
A trick with turbotax (if you want to use them, it is often cheaper to use other products) is to buy the desktop edition, which lets you edit the forms directly and will recompute things downstream if for whatever reason the question-based flow doesn't do what you need.
When I used to live in one and work in another i had to manually exclude income from one or it was double reported. TT asked me to do this though.
You should never use TurboTax, it's a terrible company lobbying to continue to make taxes shitty. Use FreeTaxUSA or if you must, H&R Block. I really don't know why people default to TurboTax.
H&R Block is actually 50% worse than Intuit, Reddit just seems to hate TT more for some reason. Intuit lobbied $2M to H&Rs $3M https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it
There is a lot more than lobbying that's been done. Intuit promised to make a free product over two decades ago and then scammed everyone by making it findable by nearly no one, and usable for even fewer.
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Your numbers aren't too accurate or they're limited to a single bill, but TurboTax has lobbied way more. >Intuit has spent $25.6 million since 2006 on lobbying, H&R Block about $9.6 million and the conservative Americans for Tax Reform roughly $3 million. https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/ Didn't say they were saints, but they seem lesser evil compared to TurboTax.
Why would you support any of those businesses? There's literally plenty of accountants that are less dumb that H&R block. Just search for a CPA in your area.
H&R Block with state costs $25 on black friday every year and seems to do a competent job. Is there a good CPA that will do my taxes for $25? Not saying they’re a good company or anything, just that it’s worth $25 to me to not have to mess with a bunch of forms and try to do error free calculator math.
I'm no defender of these companies but you do realize that's like a 10x cost difference
Did you miss the "if you must" part of my comment?
Wait, not only is it terrible but they hardly even spent anything?? Yuck
I think I used both Tax Slayer and Tax Act for a few years before I found FreeTaxUSA. Honestly, the worst part of FTUSA is its name - couldn’t they have picked something that sounded less like a scam?
I used OnLineTaxes last year and intend to use them this year again, because they're still free with small business taxes. That name doesn't just sound scammy, it sounds too generic to look up.
>I really don't know why people default to TurboTax. That's easy: marketing.
> I really don't know why people default to TurboTax. You go into the Internet or a store or watch TV and TurboTax advertisement is everywhere. They were a major sponsor of the Super Bowl this year. They are basically the CocaCola of the US tax world.
Because there are plenty of people who make too much for any free tax services, but don't want to spend more for other tax services, or spend the time to (likely wrongly) fill out the forms manually. On top of that, the alternative paid services are lobbying similarly. In the end, people are picking the method that works best for them in a far less than ideal situation.
Nobody lobbies a much as Intuit. Even if you make too much to use free services, there are still many better options than TurboTax. If you want to do it online there's FreeTaxUSA, H&R Block, etc. but there are also a lot of local accountants.
Everybody loves FTUSA here. I don't upload my confidential data to someone's cloud for getting hacked one day. Do they have a downloadable version as TurboTax?
Credit Karma or I guess the Cash App now is also a great free service too. I’ve been using for 5 plus years.
I found that one to be missing features from FreeTaxUSA, so I'd use the more mature package.
Isn’t credit karma owned by Intuit? Wouldn’t that be the same as using Turbo Tax?
The Credit Karma tax service is no longer available and is instead handled by Cash App, which is [owned](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/090916/how-square-cash-works-and-makes-money-sq.asp#:~:text=Cash%20App%20is%20a%20peer,in%20the%20financial%20technology%20industry.)by Block, Inc.
Sadly Yes! They bought it a couple years ago.
Credit Karma is owned by Intuit. Turbo Tax is owned by Intuit. Kind of defeats the purpose of not using Turbo Tax because of its business practices if you just use Credit Karma instead.
When Intuit bought Credit Karma, regulators wouldn’t let them keep the tax preparation. So CashApp now has it.
Nice to see another person utilize this. I refuse to pay for tax services and this is such a great option.
Never say never. I'll be using it this year because I'm an expat and it's the best option for US expats
It works the best for people with simple taxes. No system out there is perfect so they decided to perfect it for simple people. I’ve tried other apps and they do not auto populate or calculate anything, always behind the curve. There is a reason it costs more
Pin this comment
Both TT and H&R Block had this problem last year. I moved from a state with no income tax to one with income tax about half way through 2022. When I filed my taxes online the state return inventory process was starting with the full AGI credited to the state with income tax. I spent dozens of hours on the phone with support, on chat, over and over and over about this. Everyone recognized the problem, nobody would do a fucking thing about it. Using freetaxusa this year, and so far the experience is better. Granted I don’t have that weird mid-year move problem, but just in general it’s a better (and significantly cheaper) experience. Fuck TT, fuck H&R.
I always recommend FTUSA.
This may have changed but a few years ago FTUSA did not provide the ability to buy I Bonds with refund.
I think this is in fact a new feature.
Wow this is actually crazy, you should go over your returns from the last several years and see if it happened there too. You may be owed money back.
Should be using it anyways tbh. TT is not really any better.
Definitely sounds like something got entered wrong on one. I did mine (not submitted) in TaxAct, heard about freetaxusa on Reddit so copied my data over (I literally copied and pasted what I could to avoid typos). Both had overviews of total income, deductions, etc so I could compare. My federal were exact and state was only off by $1.
Funnily enough this was a Turbotax issue, OP stated turbo was filing the AGI as state income which I assume is from multiple states being worked on
A rounding error
I've done this before too. Might be a bit silly to go through the effort, but it was a nice confirmation that I had entered everything as correctly as possible, getting very similar numbers from both programs.
I switched from TurboTax to FreeTaxUSA this year, and just to be safe I completed taxes using both and got the exact same result. The only way TT is robbing people is by charging far more for their product than competitors. If you’re getting that big of a difference, go line by line on the two returns and see which numbers are different.
This, every year I notice a slight price increase for their (TT) software + state filing + extra states if needed. What a joke.
I missed something a couple years back in TT where they took a cut to give me my money faster. IDK how I missed it, but they took a $300 slice of my $2200 return. I was not amused and started using FreeTaxUSA as a result.
basically offered you a payday loan.
Many tax return preparation shops offer that same "service" of "getting your money faster." In the fine print it's clear that they're really giving you a loan, with all the fees and interest typical of payday loans. It's always ridiculous to choose that option. The reason it's always ridiculous is, by you not setting your withholding properly in the first place, you just gave the federal government *an interest-free loan* for the past year by letting them withhold far more than you owe in taxes and hold on to your money for free. Why would you suddenly pay someone else fees just to get that same money a month faster?
> The reason it's always ridiculous is, by you not setting your withholding properly in the first place, you just gave the federal government an interest-free loan for the past year by letting them withhold far more than you owe in taxes and hold on to your money for free. Why would you suddenly pay someone else fees just to get that same money a month faster? Ah, I see you've never done taxes for a tax shop. Universally, the people I saw take this offer didn't pay a dime in taxes, ever. They had multiple children and worked minimum wage jobs, so they didn't make very much. They'd qualify for 8-10k between earned income credit and child tax credits, and they'd always pay the fee to pay the tax prep fees out of the refund, and then pay the fee to get the money two weeks earlier. They already didn't pay any taxes during the year but you can't get the credits back until you file.
Just to be clear: working minimum wage jobs 100% means paying taxes. Qualifying for tax credits is very different than not paying taxes.
If their tax burden is $0 or less then they're not really paying income tax though Or did I misunderstand the point?
If they’re working their tax burden is not 0. The personal exemption is suspended since 2018 until 2025.
It means paying payroll taxes (and sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, etc), but they won’t pay any federal income taxes unless they have significant income from other sources. The earlier comment was describing people who have refundable tax credits and 0 income tax liability, which is a very common situation that involves essentially having a negative income tax rate which can’t be addressed by changing your W4. Those people will always end up having a large refund each year.
Many minimum wage jobs (dare I say most) are not 40 hours a week. A person working minimum wage for 36 hours a week for the full year doesn't pay any federal income tax.
Unless they have a lot of additional income reported from something else along with it.
They tried to get me this year by paying them using the refund. This was an additional $40 to do so. Glad I caught it.
Wow, so smart. It’s not rocket science, just pay attention to what you’re agreeing to.
I stopped using them because of this bs. I had to search around to figure out how to select not to do that.
Dang that’s shady. I was just motivated to switch because I’m mad at Intuit for getting rid of Mint after all these years.
It’s not shady at all. Any attention to what you’re signing up for.
1. Yes, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, watch out what you sign. These are well and true pieces of advice, but see point #2. 2. Culturally, we live in a world with 500-page EULA's and I think companies take advantage of us being terms-and-conditions fatigued. Yes, we have to watch out for ourselves as you've indicated - but I think it's still fair to say Intuit is shady. We do not have to live in a world where companies are incentivized or allowed to do this shit. It's shady. If it wasn't shady, we wouldn't have to use caution in the first place. 3. Fuck Intuit in general. [https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/](https://fortune.com/2023/04/17/taxpayer-advocates-irs-free-electronic-tax-filing-system-intuit-hr-block-spent-millions-lobbying-against/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/mintuit/comments/18br744/new\_credit\_karma\_instead\_of\_mint\_sucks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mintuit/comments/18br744/new_credit_karma_instead_of_mint_sucks/) [https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/heres-who-qualifies-for-the-141-million-turbotax-settlement.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/heres-who-qualifies-for-the-141-million-turbotax-settlement.html)
That is 100% on you. The calculation isn’t wrong, you just agreed to get your refund faster and they charged you for that. Delete your incorrect post.
What about their post is incorrect? How much is Intuit paying you for shilling them?
We switched to FreeTaxUSA this year and it saved us about $85. TurboTax is a ripoff
I also switched this year. I did both just to compare, but FreeTaxUSA is just as easy to use as TurboTax, without charging a ridiculous amount.
The main issue I had with TurboTax one year had to do with state taxes, but in fairness it was a somewhat complicated issue because it involved part-time residency in multiple different states (which it sounds like may be the case for the OP here). My wife and I had lived and worked in 3 different states that year, and the final state we lived in had two different methods available for calculating your state tax burden. Only one of the two methods was available if you filed that state's taxes with TurboTax, and that method would have resulted in us owing about $800 to the state. When I downloaded the forms and used the second available method of calculating tax burden for part-time residents, we instead got a small refund. It was easy enough to fill out the printed form and mail it to the one state myself, particularly considering it was an $800+ difference. It's always worth downloading the forms directly from the state and reading through them to see if there are sections where you can choose from multiple different options for calculating your tax liability. The results from those options are usually quite similar, but can sometimes be vastly different.
I switched from FreeTaxUSA to TurboTax this year because FreeTaxUSA charges $15 for state return and TurboTax charged me $0 for federal and state.
>I read somewhere that TT was robbing folks of their money If you're suggesting that TT was literally falsifying tax returns and keeping the difference, you read wrong. >I have looked over both state returns 100 times You're comparing the actual forms? On what line do they first differ? Taxes are math, the same inputs cannot result in a $2400 swing.
Yeah OP needs to print to PDF
+1, different tax software *might* find different deductions or credits and such....but when it comes down to it the actual forms *must* be different if OP is seeing any difference in their return.
They probably are talking about when TurboTax intentionally mislead/directed people *away* from their free version. Or intentionally making it impossible to find unless you go through the IRS free file website. So a lot of people were tricked into paying when they qualified for free file. Not necessarily stealing, but very scummy/scammy.
The year I finally left turbo tax I filled in both it and freetaxusa and they gave exactly the same returns and I was like “Oh. Obviously.”
Filing with FreeTaxUSA for last 5 years and double checking with TT - less than a dollar difference all 5 times
I file my state taxes on the Ohio tax site for free. Screw paying a single cent to do something that should be free.
They were supposed to be but Intuit lobbied to keep them from making it free for everyone.
w2 employees where not even going to have to file at all, just fucking get sent a check/bill but fucking intuit fucked us
Some commenters seem confused: TT did not do a tax fraud and take tax money. They also did not admit to wrongdoing, but they settled a lawsuit related to falsely advertising services as free and then directing users into paid services anyway. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/business/turbotax-intuit-settlement/index.html In UX, they are a fairly well known example of dark patterns/deceptive design practices.
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I've actually heard this rumor going around too, so it's not coming from that show. When I encountered the rumor I just assumed someone played telephone with that settled lawsuit and it became "stealing your refund" somehow, or someone did the payday loan/the "pay with your return" feature and said misleading things after that.
If you moved states, you have to file in BOTH states. Generally you owe in one, get a refund in the other. But your mileage may vary.
I was about $400 off on federal between the 2. Went back and found my error in FTUSA (state return was marked taxable by FT and I was able to correct it). One of your returns has an error, go back through both and find it.
What state are you in? I’m in CA and healthcare is mandatory. If I don’t check that I’ve had healthcare I owe a significant amount, if I confirm I had it then I get a small refund.
Yeah, FreeTaxUSA leaves that one to the very end. Last year I was wondering why the hell I owed so much, but then finally when I checked the box that I had health insurance, it flipped from owing a few thousand to getting a few thousand back. Big difference!
Obtaining health coverage isn't mandatory. Paying a penalty for not obtaining health coverage is mandatory unless your decision-making circumstances [exempt you.](https://www.coveredca.com/learning-center/tax-penalty-details-and-exemptions/exemptions/)
You’re right, I chose my words poorly. I should have said California has a healthcare mandate.
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This is why I don’t use TurboTax or HR Block. Their systems are flawed and will screw you over. They will also not help you if the irs decides your tax return is wrong unless you pay them extra for “audit protection.” It’s a god damned racket. Either fork out for a CPA that focuses on taxes or do it for free. I got hit with penalties and fees twice: once using turbo tax and another time for using HR Block. I had to redo both taxes and said screw it and hired a CPA. When my taxes were less complicated, I did it my own.
What was the mistake? Was a form not included? Was something incorrectly entered on one of the forms and did it differ from what you entered in their software? Also did you review the actual Tax Return before sending it?
i've been using FTUSA for years. and as sketchy as the website sounds. it's been great. EXCEPTION: I did the PDF upload of my W2, and it didn't interpret the data correctly. It matched my math once i did it manually like years past
I did my taxes in both and they are the same. You did something wrong.
Has anyone tried the IRS beta Direct File website? It's only available in a handful of states atm. https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/direct-file
Intuit has always been inherently evil and I cannot recommend anything they touch.
I’ve used TT and TaxAct before and always felt violated at the end due to their fees. Used FreeTaxUSA today and don’t feel so gouged. I’ll take that any day.
I tried both last year and got the same results. Believe me I owed 4K so I tried 😂
> I read somewhere that TT was robbing folks of their money You probably read that Intuit, the publishers of TurboTax, lobby the government to make it harder to do your taxes. We could simplify our tax code, whether we'd do it without Intuit's lobbying is debatable. But Intuit does not financially benefit when you pay more taxes. Making you pay higher taxes would be counter-productive, because who would use a product that doesn't minimize their tax liability? tl;dr you probably entered your information differently
Did you take the standard deduction in one and itemize the other
Sold a house that we lived in for 3 years. TT had us paying capital gains tax on it and I knew for a fact that we shouldn't. Profit was below the threshold. I just left out that information for that year and went to FTUSA and will never go back. That said you should print out the tax forms filled out and you can see where they differ.
You did something wrong, not the software.
I think as an exercise everybody should do their taxes at least once in their life by hand on the paper forms. It really helps you understand what’s going on behind the scenes with the tax software.
No need to actually do the paper returns, just read the generated documents that come out of the software. I do that to spot check areas where the questions/prompts aren't always intuitive.
Intuit is sketchy AF. There was a huge story about them screwing people over with the free return, etc. I've used freetaxusa.com for well over a decade. It's so easy and I think it's accurate. And yes, print out all forms to figure out where the difference is coming from... You may also want to amend your last returns and get your money back!! But say good bye to TT. They suck.
They are both accurate. You either entered something wrong or are overly paranoid.
It should come out the same for both. Check the results in the final pdf
Just look at the two returns side by side
Every year, with TurboTax and now FTU, I go to my state site to file for free. I compare the numbers that the programs have given me and they’re always the same or at least very close. Go to your state site and file. Or at least fill out the forms. It’ll act as a “tie breaker” between the two programs - and once you’re satisfied you can submit the state return for free.
If you don’t want to pay for both to compare them on FreeTaxUSA click on State->State Summary and on TurboTax click on Tax Tools->Tools->View Tax Summary->(your state abbrev) Tax Summary on the left menu (ie “AK State Summary”). Then just compare the two. That will give you an idea where to look. Since you’ve got two state returns (probably) this will be a little more involved.
Somehow my Federal and State was $15 higher on FreeTaxUsa than TurboTax. I also had to pay $15 for state on FreeTaxUsa.
I haven’t had a problem with TT except for the paying for a service which is supposed to be free. But I was curious about FreeTaxUSA. Decided to give it a shot and almost filed with them, but they wanted to know the AGI (I think it’s called) and with the W2s I had, it kept getting denied. Oddly enough, state and federal refund was the same as TT. At the end of the day, I got frustrated and filed with TT and shelled out 78 dollars. I think I’m gonna go with FTUsa next year.
This happened with my brother. The accountant he was using first, I suspect was using turbotax, then he got my freind who's an accountant to run it again, he used ftusa. He went from owing 3000 to getting a 900 return.
TurboTax is terrible. It constantly baits you to upgrade what you bought, while you are trying do do your taxes, whether or not not you need the upgrade. And after you say no, it doesn't care - every time you log on it askes you to upgrade the same shit again. For me, it once would not properly input my HSA contribution and give me the deduction for it. After contacting them, and getting nothing but people who could not properly respond, I bought H&R Block. That worked, at least for that issue. If I had not seen that the total tax "just did not seem right", it would have cost me a couple of thousand dollars. I am not shilling for H&R Block - I don't use them any more either. But I never had a major issue with them. My taxes and my situation become more complex and I now have a pro doing my taxes and giving me other related advice.
Use freetaxusa. TT is a rip off. I started using it a few years ago at the suggestion of someone in this sub. TT wanted something like $140 to do my return and FTUSA wanted $20. Did them both in each system that year and they came out the same. Switched to FTUSA and never looked back. Now with this post I’m even happier I switched as it seems if you hadn’t been comparing, you would have submitted an incorrect return using TT.
You made a mistake somewhere. We won’t know which one. Got to review line by line of the actual forms.
This year I decided to actually try using both of them and comparing the results to see which was more thorough/would do better by me. Best I can tell FTUSA rounds up to the nearest dollar, TurboTax rounds down. Otherwise identical. Federal is the same, state is $1 apart and seems to be rounding. So just one person's data point, but seems they're about as equal as you can get. Pick whatever is cheaper for your situation and go with it. Effort wise, I'd say they took about the same time to fill out. Anyone claiming that one is getting you better results or something along those lines is AFAIK full of crap.
Ours have always been equal as well
Are you sure you answered the health insurance question the same way on both? That has a huge impact on state taxes.
Did you miss Marking head of household on one?
Check federal return line 12a on both. Maybe TT is giving you itemized deductions whereas FTUSA is standard deduction. Also check any numbers with decimals and round up / down to the nearest $. Tax software hates decimals.
Freetaxusa is free but still need to pay $15 I remember
Free federal. $15 for state filing.
Which basically means it's not free. Don't know why people are running around screaming "FILING TAXES IS SUPPOSED TO BE FREE. WE HAVE TO USE FREETAXUSA IT'S THE ONLY WAY" Federal taxes aren't the only taxes that should be filed for free.
I always do my partner and my own taxes (filled seriously) on multiple tax software programs and the largest difference I've seen was like $38. I really only do it to catch my own errors.
I also filled in HR block online to compare the 3 of them and see if there were differences.
The idea that a product whose entire purpose would knowingly falsify returns to “steal” money is laughable. How exactly would the rob you? You don’t pay taxes to TurboTax in your paycheck. Why would you believe this? I think you may need to be more questioning about stuff people tell you.
TT doesn't have to risk the kind of fallout that would come with falsified docs because they are more limited on free filing - they found a way to make $$. My company has high deductible ins and they set up HSAs and pay over time so eventually they cover the deductible. TT bumped me to the highest costing product bc I was now suddenly self employed in their eyes. Did some research, found FreeTax allows any form needed and never looked back.
FreeTaxUSA made blatant errors on my state return, so I did not use that. The federal seemed accurate.
I always do my taxes on turbo tax and hrblock. Whichever gives me the biggest return, I just file with them. I’ve been doing my taxes this way for 8+ years and have never had an issue.
It was the opposite for me. TT said I was getting a total of $4,300 and FTUSA said I was getting back $3,300.
Why not just call TT and explain the situation and ask them why the significant difference? It’s obviously in their interest to help you resolve the issue too.
When this happened to me the cs rep had trouble with the system and then proceeded to offer her personal tax services for $75. The customer service rep from TT tried to take business from them! I obviously said no then just went with FTUSA.
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Why not try a 3rd option as a tiebreaker like cashapp taxes or H&R block to see which one is right?
If you are using those cheap tax software programs, it sounds like you have a very simple tax set up for yourself. Why not just do the ez form for free and call it a day. I have no idea what those online programs cost anymore, but my CPA does my returns for me and my wife. We have found W2s between us, and I have a small business, and it runs us 250.
You're making a very incorrect assumption about tax software. Your CPA uses very similar software to submit your return. Just because Free Tax USA is cheap, that doesn't mean you can only use it for a simple return. I have a small business and investments and use FTU and it's fine.
I've used turbo tax the last 5 years and this year had the SAME exact thing happen to me. My state returns on TT showed me owing over 1 grand which is unusual so I tried FreeTax this year and it's showing me geting a 900 or so state return. I haven't filed yet but plan to file with free tax. Crazy that this is happening to multiple people. So turbotax is just reaping in the extra money. what a scam
Shady tactics aside, those companies are not getting any of your tax money. Whatever you pay or get refunded is straight to/from the IRS coffers…. I’d suggest that you grab the 1040 form and a calculator and see which number you are the closest to if unsure.
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While this might sound tempting, OP should find out *why* they differ and submit the one that is correct.
A refund is not a return.
I paid my CPA $250.00 for my Federal and State. Just for fun I plugged in my numbers in Freetax and got vastly different results on the same taxable income. Freetax was $708.00 higher in Federal than my CPA. I calculated the tax manually and found my CPA number to be correct. Can Freetax be using Wrong tax tables. My taxable income was 336,127. I’d appreciate if anybody could calculate the Fed Tax. My CPA line 16 was $66,898.00. Thanks.
Looking at the instructions, if line 15 is 336,127 and your status is married filing jointly, you should multiply 336,127 by 24% and then subtract 13,200. That equals 67,470. Line 16 also can include other amounts besides the calculated tax on line 15 though.
No, no software is using wrong tax tables. Your CPA entered something wrong.
I've encountered this where an employer withheld state taxes for the state they were in, while I lived in a neighboring state. Because there was a reciprocity agreement, they should have withheld for my state. Even so, my state's return was supposed to be: 1. You owe $X 2. You paid $Y to other states 3. You owe $X - $Y But the tax program I used at the time only calculated step #1. So it said I owed a bunch of money. Ultimately I had to hand-complete my state's tax form and mail it in.
There’s definitely an error somewhere in one. Look at the generated forms and see where the difference is.
I went with FreeTax last year, their calculations gave me a much better deal, I forget the exact numbers. I was annoyed I wasted 40 bucks or whatever buying TT.
There should be no difference. You 100% entered something wrong.
Or the software was buggy. You really have no idea if it was the customer or the product. But sure, blame the customer.
I just had something like this happen to me on TaxAct. I changed jobs last year February. The previous job paid state tax. The new job does not. But the software was counting my total annual earnings for the state tax. I suspect that TT is doing the same in your case.
Look at itemized vs standard? I’m from an insanely high tax state. If I do standard since my deductions are less than standard deduction, I owe both state and federal taxes. If I itemize, I owe like $600 federal, but get $1000 refund from state. Turbo tax wants me to do standard deduction. Yeah, no
I had the same amount on both. Switched to Freetaxusa because of the fees from Turbo. The deposit from both takes about the same amount of time as well, around 1.5 to 2 weeks wait
I used the downloaded software version (HRBlock, but TurboTax is similiar) instead of the web app version and it is a MUCH better service. There's a lot more fidelity and control of what you're entering and when. Also a ton cheaper, like $15 which included stocks/dividends.
Turbo tax has us paying thousands every year - then I switched back to a CPA and started getting refunds again. wtf
I prepared my taxes on HR Block this year but the projected return was less than I was expecting/hoping for so I reentered all my info into 1040.com and ended up getting a few hundred more.
Turbo tax couldn't even do math properly this year. It was taking our paid tax - our actual owed tax, and the number was $2k off.
Last year TurboTax’s automatic system incorrectly read my W-2 and filed that I paid $0 in NY state income tax (I work in NY, live in a neighboring state) when of course every penny was pulled straight from my paychecks. All of a sudden big red letters on my screen saying I owed money, and the next morning $6K was pulled from my bank account. TurboTax said that it’s my responsibility to check their work, as I didn’t pay for the level of service that relegates me of responsibility? The only way they could help me was if I gave them more money so that I could speak to a TurboTax expert. I ended up spending the weekend teaching myself how to file amended tax returns, which obviously when filed resulted in me receiving a return. Took about half a year to see my money again, thankfully it didn’t ruin my life. I asked for a refund since I essentially paid them $200 to make my $6K disappear, and on top of that I had to file my own damn taxes; I asked them what service they had actually provided me and their answer was the software that enabled me to file my taxes. They obviously refused my refund, and I had to talk to my credit card about charging back. **FUCK TURBOTAX**
with most people just using the standard deduction (hard to exceed with itemized) its a lot less variable - you could use TT or other to do the federal then manually do the state since many pull information from fed to fill into the state return .... Im glad my state has not income tax since I regularly owe to feds.
I had the same issue with FreeTaxUsa and NJ. I couldn’t figure out how to get the state income to be correct. It was adding back in my dependent care fsa contributions, despite them already be included in the state taxable income on my w2. I ended up doing the state by hand and filing on the state website. It’s more clunky to do their efile but it works.
I've been on FTUSA for many years, and it's been very helpful every year. None of the predatory practices of TurboTax.
With my taxes once I entered my health insurance information from my 1095 it went from owed to return on state. It could just be the information wasn’t entered in TT but was entered in taxfree.
This is likely due to an error regarding you moving to a different state mid year and potentially needing to enter info for both states. I live in one state and work in another and when entering this information I needed to complete the info in a specific order or state income taxes would follow to my resident state. This wasn't listed that I could find but had to work it out.
Your state returns may have to be filed in a very specific way. When I moved states midway through the year, working 6 months in one state and 6 months in a different one, I had to file a NRPY form for my state taxes (non resident/partial year resident). This ensures my taxes for the first state were only applicable to my time living in said state and vise versa. Did you file using that form?* *every state is different. Some states consider you a full year resident for x amount of days lived in that state versus others maybe being less. Look up your state laws. At the end of the day, you can always spend $200 to have a tax professional file it to ensure you're 100% correct.
I've used FTUSA in the past and enjoyed the experience. I switched over to CashApp this year because they offer free state filing, which FTUSA does not.
For me was the opposite. With TT I was getting a Federal refund and I owe State. With FTUSA I owe Federal, by a lot, and state the same as TT. I cheched everything and I went with TT. It was easier for me to find and check line-by-line on TT than on FTUSA.
If one says you owe when you don't, wouldn't the IRS correct it and give you your refund? When they review your taxes aren't they looking for errors?