Decoding TurboTax: Which TurboTax version is best for you in 2023?

You can also pay an additional fee to move to Full Service and have your tax return prepared for you. Before filing your return, a tax pro will schedule a time to review your return with you. Preparing your tax return with TurboTax is a lot like sitting down with a tax preparer.

1. Sign up when you’re ready to finish and file your taxes with TurboTax and begin using your account right away.Or, you can have your refund mailed as a check.
2. TaxAct provides professional tax expert assistance, which includes help from CPAs, Enrolled Agents (EAs) and tax attorneys to help with filing but at no additional cost.
3. If you only need your adjusted gross income (AGI), we can help with that.
4. The free return supports income from W2 wages, Social Security income, unemployment benefits and interest and dividends under $1,500.
5. Because we have customers who pay for our premium products and services, we can offer free tax filing.

Our calculations are 100% accurate so your taxes will be done right, guaranteed, or we’ll pay you any IRS penalties. You can speak to an expert via phone, chat, or live on-screen through one-way video chat (they can’t see you). You can share your TurboTax screen with your expert so they can guide you and answer your questions. But like many things with taxes, it all depends on your personal situation. Military members can file through any TurboTax Online (not CD/desktop or TurboTax Live) product, including Free Edition, Deluxe, and Premium. You just need to enter your W-2 and verify your military rank when prompted within TurboTax Online, and your discount will be applied when you are ready to file.

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These prices reflect the list prices advertised as of April 19, 2023, without any discounts that TurboTax may offer to people who file early in the tax filing season. If you want to pay your filing fee out of your federal refund, TurboTax charges an extra $39 refund processing fee for the convenience. TurboTax, a product turbotax editions of the financial, accounting, and tax-preparation software provider Intuit, is one of the most popular tax-filing options out there. Its popularity partly stems from its name recognition (having been around for nearly 40 years) but also from the company’s focus on design and offering users plenty of features.

Informational audit support is in every individual plan, and Live Assisted Business and Full Service Business. In other words, you get audit support unless you did a business return without assistance. How much you’ll pay for each plan depends on how complicated your taxes are.

Expert does your taxes

This tax planner helps you know what docs you’ll need so you can gather them and start securely uploading them to your TurboTax account. The IRS has a list of the tax scenarios that Free File providers can handle. It includes capital gains and losses, self-employment taxes, and child and dependent care expenses — all of which aren’t included in the free versions of TurboTax and H&R Block, or IRS Direct File.

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It applies the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and deductions for student-loan interest and $300 out-of-pocket expenses for teachers. It handles the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. It also applies the standard deduction, student-loan interest deduction and education credits.

You can receive your refund by check, whether you’re printing or e-filing. “Free File can provide a multitude of services,” Hugo said. Free File providers offer the same customer service for their free customers and their paying customers, Hugo said. If the IRS audits a return prepared in TurboTax, you can get free audit support, meaning a TurboTax expert will review correspondence from the IRS and let you know what to expect and how to prepare. However, you’ll need to upgrade to TurboTax MAX to have a TurboTax pro represent you while dealing with the audit. Whereas TaxSlayer Premium or Self Employed version, offer tax assistance, but it’s limited to guidance only.

Is TurboTax really free? Here are 5 free tax-prep options, including H&R Block and IRS Direct File.

The process is similar for states that collect income taxes. Similar to TurboTax, other programs offer tax expert assistance. TaxAct provides professional tax expert assistance, which includes help from CPAs, Enrolled Agents (EAs) and tax attorneys to help with filing but at no additional cost.

For example, the basic version is $40, but you can e-file five federal returns and state returns are $20 each. So, if you are doing taxes for several people, this could save some money. Most tax software will allow you to add on the ability to speak to a tax expert and ask questions, but few have the option to just hand them over completely and have the expert file on your behalf. The Do It Yourself plan does not come with any live tax assistance. There is tech support if you have questions about the software, but you will not have access to a tax pro. Your tax expert will be able to see a read-only version of your tax return to assist them in addressing your questions.

The main difference is that with H&R Block, you don’t have the option to ask questions to a tax pro on any plan. Tax questions are answered by an AI chatbot and if you want to speak to a human you have to upgrade all the way to a full service plan, where they file on your behalf. TurboTax will walk you through the process of doing your taxes by asking simple, plain English, questions that will guide the software to understand what forms and information you’ll need to submit. If you want full audit defense, you’ll have to upgrade for $39.99. This service is provided through a third party, called TaxAudit.

The software walks you through the tax preparation and filing process with a series of interview-style questions. Do you want to DIY your tax filing but need some help figuring out which forms you can file and which deductions you can claim? TurboTax might be the right tax filing software for you—if you don’t mind navigating lots of invitations to upgrade or add on extra features. TurboTax is one of the most trusted tax prep software available.

We use industry accepted encryption standards for data at rest and in-transit to help ensure your information is protected. Our software will allow you to securely upload your tax documents to our system. You can give permission through the software to share your tax documents with your tax expert.

TurboTax has received a number of complaints regarding its advertising of the free version. For filers who use this basic version of the software, federal filing is free. However, state tax filing is not free, and the cost of using TurboTax to file state returns is not presented to the user until they’ve already completed entering https://turbo-tax.org/ their information for federal returns. In 2020, more than 195 million tax returns and other tax forms were filed electronically; 14 million of those tax returns were filed with a version of TurboTax. The tax software aims to simplify the tax filing process and find customers big tax breaks they otherwise would’t find on their own.

They also have a full suite of guarantees, such as an accuracy guarantee and a maximum refund guarantee. TurboTax Premier has all the features of TurboTax Deluxe, but is also great for taxpayers with investment incomes, such as stock, cryptocurrency, bonds, ESPPs, robo-investing and income from rental properties. If you’ve been buying and selling on Robinhood or Coinbase — especially selling, which is a taxable event — TurboTax Premier is likely the version for you.