Last year, my husband mistakenly purchased the online version of TurboTax from Costco due to unclear labeling on the packaging. We used it to file our 2023 taxes, and we were very dissatisfied with the experience. We’ve been using TurboTax for at least 10 years, but it became clear that the online version does not have feature-parity with the desktop version. Having access to the forms is a no-brainier IMO. This year, we naturally decided to return to the desktop version, especially considering both products are priced the same. However, we were shocked to learn that it’s not possible to switch back to the desktop version. This is the final straw.
As a developer, I can confidently say that the inability to migrate from the online version to the desktop version is not an oversight—it's a business decision. The fact that this feature hasn’t been developed after the online version has been available for so long makes it clear that it’s a deliberate strategy. When a moderator claims that feedback has been passed on to the software development team, don’t expect any real progress on this issue. They’re not actively working on it.
This year, before starting our 2024 income taxes we considered switching to a Canadian-owned tax software product, given the current political climate. The only reason we stuck with TurboTax was because of the import feature, which allowed us to avoid starting over from scratch. Now that we see we’ll have to start fresh anyway, we will ditch TurboTax and move on.
