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Amending and efiling a federal return should be easy and for the most part it is. Except for the filing part. TurboTax desktop simply doesn't provide an option for me to efile, instead offering to print. I call support. We poke around. They determine that its the IRS that preventing efiling and I need to call them. How did they determine this? Its the only thing it could be, according to them.
If the IRS was preventing efiling, why didn't TurboTax say so directly? Why would I need a troubleshooting session with support?
They try to make everything so 'easy' to the point of treating you like you're stupid.
Just be honest about whats happening behind the scenes.
---
20 years ago I was told a Quickbooks file needed to be sent in for recovery because the mac version allowed `enter` as a character and the PC version didn't. Recovery cost $200 or so. They have not changed.
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I used the online FreeTaxUSA from a link at the IRS website.
It was vastly more user friendly than Turbotax, and for me, it was actually free!
It took less than an hour to do my taxes.
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I went to TurboTax years ago when H&R Block changed an input of a catch-up retirement contribution amount back to the non-catch-up amount without any notice. I figured it out before I filed my taxes. It was simply not possible to put in the appropriate amount that year (surely it's been fixed by now...). I checked with a TurboTax product and it worked fine. So, I've been with them ever since.
I agree that it's so easy that they treat you like you're stupid. But, I also think I've gotten stupid about my taxes because I just follow the cookbook. Back in the day of calculators I really understood my taxes. Now it's more of a hope that they're correct!
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Weird.
My copy did not have that problem.
Edit: Ah! Key part is "amending..." I did not amend my return.
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freeradical wrote:
I used the online FreeTaxUSA from a link at the IRS website.
It was vastly more user friendly than Turbotax, and for me, it was actually free!
It took less than an hour to do my taxes.
I've been using FreeTaxUSA for our taxes since our 2017 taxes. Usually costs me about $20, but that's because I use it for state taxes as well ($15), and opt for the "deluxe" features. We've been very happy with it.
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mattkime wrote:
Amending and efiling a federal return
If you are submitting an amended return, then it is the IRS requirement that it be mailed in. You may only file your original return. So for all of Intuit's issues, this is not one. (at least that was the case in 2020 although I doubt it was changed for 2021.
however, if you were talking to tax support, they should have known that. If you were talking to technical support, they may not have known.
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I used Turbotax since the Macintax days, so over 20 years?
Until 3 years ago that is.
Turbotax handled the septic system replacement/credits fine, my wife's
self employment out of the house, etc just fine.
Then when my wife and her sister sold their mother's house, I was asked
to have someone else handle taxes, as the numbers on ours and SIL's taxes had to match.
I agreed and went to our local Liberty Tax franchise. They understood the situation and
all went well. They also noticed that Turbotax was not handling my Massachusetts Solar Credits
correctly. Feds were fine, and numbers were automatically plugged into state, so I went with it.
Apparently their program did not give me a $1,000 credit as it was not built into the program.
So, paid them a $75 amended return fee, and I got my thousand bucks.
In return, Liberty has me as a returning customer. Yeah, price of filing doubled over TT, but don't care.
Took me several hours to do it myself, this year was 25 minutes for them. No stress, we chatted about food, and my returns are bigger.
For me, that's a win, win, win.
Dave
Welcome to Dave's BBQ!
Many have eaten here....
Few have died
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Ombligo wrote:
[quote=mattkime]
Amending and efiling a federal return
If you are submitting an amended return, then it is the IRS requirement that it be mailed in. You may only file your original return. So for all of Intuit's issues, this is not one. (at least that was the case in 2020 although I doubt it was changed for 2021.
however, if you were talking to tax support, they should have known that. If you were talking to technical support, they may not have known.
https://www.irs.gov/faqs/electronic-fili...ed-returns
2020 allowed efiling the amended return. Its unclear if 2021 isn't allowed or its an oversight in the doc.
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I gave up on TT this year, because they no longer support Mojave. So I got H&R Block, which works but is EXTREMELY crashy... and I learned the hard way that, for reasons I don't understand, the app doesn't auto-save your return. Still, it worked OK.
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mattkime wrote:
Amending and efiling a federal return should be easy and for the most part it is. Except for the filing part. TurboTax desktop simply doesn't provide an option for me to efile, instead offering to print. I call support. We poke around. They determine that its the IRS that preventing efiling and I need to call them. How did they determine this? Its the only thing it could be, according to them.
If the IRS was preventing efiling, why didn't TurboTax say so directly? Why would I need a troubleshooting session with support?
They try to make everything so 'easy' to the point of treating you like you're stupid.
Just be honest about whats happening behind the scenes.
I went through that last year and finally gave up and mailed in my returns. This year, same BS. No help at all from TurdoTax. Then yesterday I saw an article in the Washington Post that addressed the issue. Turns out the the IRS is so far behind processing 2020 that when you try and efile and put in your AGI from last year it will reject it because it doesn't have your AGI in its data bank.
So just put in 0 and voila! That also lets the state returns get though (that I had to pay $25 extra for, and what a f*cking scam!). The question is why the frick doesn't TurdoTax know this?
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