topic Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software? in Troubleshooting

When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 13:51:49 GMT

2024 Desktop version

Between the capital gains nonsense preventing people from filing EVEN IF they have no gains to report and the inability to refile (last estimate March17 but who knows) if you notice a mistake after filing, this year's offering from Intuit will go down as the poorest release in their history.

I understand that the capital gains issue is somehow intertwined with the government incompetence issue for people reporting gains, but if you aren't reporting any gains, the program should auto by-pass the requirement for the form. Simple programming fix but ignored.

My advice is before filing online to go to Edit>Forms>T567>Clear Current Form and then Close Unused Forms....and then do the same for Schedule 3.....Then file.

I have used TurboTax since its inception and I have never seen a poorer year for clean programming and update corrective services than 2024. One has to worry about mistakes in the background that aren't noticeable until the government comes knocking later.

Pretty sure its run, for me at least, has come to an end.

I will source a new software starting next year.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 14:03:55 GMT

*sorry correction...that should read T657

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:01:09 GMT

IN PRAISE OF TURBOTAX.

I have been maintaining a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which tries to predict in late December how TurboTax will calculate my income tax for April. Each column (year since 1982) on my spreadsheet has over 700 cells filled with equations and data. As a tax payer, my profile is relatively simple compared to people who operate a small business.

I am blown away by the complexity of the TurboTax software which creates a one size fits all product.

I have been a liaison in the past between Rev Quebec and TurboTax to deal with a hidden programming bug about post retirement employer benefits. I found the high level employees at TurboTax in Calgary to be very responsive and motivated.

To me, TurboTax is one of the best software products that I have ever seen, coming from a retired programmer who used to deal with robotic software containing millions of lines of code.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:19:24 GMT

"I have been a liaison in the past between Rev Quebec and TurboTax to deal with a hidden programming bug about post retirement employer benefits. I found the high level employees at TurboTax in Calgary to be very responsive and motivated."

yeah....so no bias there.

====

True, over the years Turbo Tax was a program you could always have confidence in using. However the last 2-3 years have been bug riddled.

Perhaps your statement; "I am blown away by the complexity of the TurboTax software which creates a one size fits all product."

....is an indicator of the inherent issue. It's gotten too complex for its own good.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:55:45 GMT

@Nobody Special

Of course I am biased, but I am not an employee or a beta tester, I have no skin in this game.

Given that the thousands of rules in the Income Tax Act have to be programmed into the software, TurboTax has to be an extremely complex piece of software.

Unlike you, I have experienced no bugs in the software in recent years, so it is hard for me to be disappointed with this product.

The CRA took until January 2025 to tell all the tax preparation software companies to undo all the capital gains related changes that they were ordered to do late last year.

I will be amazed if everyone is ready to resume Netfiling by the end of March.

Only after you follow through with a competitor's product will you know who is doing a better job.

Good luck with your future tax returns.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

gcamp54 — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:44:14 GMT

Are you saying that even if you don't have any capital gains to report you can't netfile your tax return yet? I didn't see any warnings that popped up on my return, so how would I know if there's a problem? Or did an error appear after netfiling?

That being said, I can't file mine yet because there's a warning about my OAS amount reported being incorrect even though it's the same amount as on my tax slip. Another bug that people noticed over a month ago that still needs to be fixed.

Sigh . . .

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:32:18 GMT

@gcamp54

There is a list of about a dozen forms related to capital gains that have been locked at the request of the CRA.

Many of these forms auto fill as a consequence of historic data imported from your 2023 TurboTax declaration in your CARRY FWD form.

As I have stated elsewhere in this forum, the capital gains calculations are activated by something as trivial as declaring bank interest in 2024 or in a previous year's TurboTax session.

Once a T936 form gets activated, it hangs around year after year. The CRA has locked this form since January.

In mode EasyStep, when it comes time to print or save the declaration (before Netfiling), that is when a pop-up error message occurs which states that one or more forms are locked.

Discovering which form is locked requires using the option for Individual Forms to save each form one by one, until you hit the one causing your problem. Start by selecting a group of forms and then work your way down.

If you Netfiled, and you got an error about your OAS amount in TurboTax being incorrect, then in your situation, I would go into Forms mode and go inspect my T4(OAS) slip and line 11300 on my T1 form. I would also log into MyAccount on the CRA website and download a copy of the T4(OAS) slip submitted to the CRA by Services Canada, in order to compare both sides.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:47:42 GMT

Unfortunately like I said, bug ridden.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:50:59 GMT

"If you Netfiled, and you got an error about your OAS amount in TurboTax being incorrect, then in your situation, I would go into Forms mode and go inspect my T4(OAS) slip and line 11300 on my T1 form. I would also log into MyAccount on the CRA website and download a copy of the T4(OAS) slip submitted to the CRA by Services Canada, in order to compare both sides."

There's the rub.

Unless the filer has chosen the auto-fill option and then tried to change the input, there is no way for the program to even know that the amount is wrong.

And there is no use in comparing what was mailed to what is on CRA's site as, once again the program has no way to compare and determine an error.

It is another documented bug.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:57:41 GMT

"The CRA took until January 2025 to tell all the tax preparation software companies to undo all the capital gains related changes that they were ordered to do late last year."

Again, the issue with capital gains isn't the issue.

The issue is EVEN IF you aren't claiming/reporting capital gains it prevents people from filing.

That is an easy programming fix to close out all non-used forms before filing. It should be a standard function.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:59:54 GMT

"Only after you follow through with a competitor's product will you know who is doing a better job.

Good luck with your future tax returns."

I have used other products and have had great success with them. I also know several people who prepare taxes for others and most of them don't use Turbo Tax.

I can do them by hand and mail them in if I wanted to. Help keep somebody employed.

So, I feel pretty confident in doing future returns without Turbo Tax...and luck has nothing to do with it.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:10:09 GMT

@Nobody Special

I could be wrong, but I think gcamp54 was implying in his post that he got the error from the CRA about his T4OAS amount being incorrect after he Netfiled, unless like you suggest, TurboTax gave him the error message after he auto filled from the CRA and later tried to manually overwrite the value.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:32:30 GMT

@Nobody Special

"The issue is EVEN IF you aren't claiming/reporting capital gains it prevents people from filing."

It prevents me from filing because I am reporting bank interest (T5) in 2024 and annually since 1988, and bank interest is considered as investment income and investment income is used to calculate CNIL and CNIL is used to calculate the capital gains deduction and the capital gains deduction is used to adjust my lifetime capital gains exemption.

So I don't need to claim a capital gain/loss in order to have the kinds of forms that the CRA is not ready to receive via Netfile.

My CNIL has been zero since 1988, but TurboTax has to remind itself and the CRA of this each year by generating a redundant T936 form.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:52:08 GMT

I still don't think you understand the issue.

If you are not now nor have you have ever in the past reported anything that could require an input on a T657 or Schedule 3....it would STILL not allow you to file and you would get the error message.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 20:07:42 GMT

"That being said, I can't file mine yet because there's a warning about my OAS amount reported being incorrect even though it's the same amount as on my tax slip. Another bug that people noticed over a month ago that still needs to be fixed. "

What he is saying is that Turbo Tax is giving him the warning.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 20:34:30 GMT

@Nobody Special

My apologies.

Faced with your strong evidence, I concede that both you and gcamp54 could be affected by 2 different bugs in the software.

I remember a few years ago that when I added a slip, then erased it, and re-added it again, and I did not get the same balance. Tech support advised me to start over with a new, fresh declaration, and that worked.

While the software does behave to some degree like a spreadsheet, there may be a limit on how much one can tug and stretch it.

Right now, the moderators of this and the French TurboTax forums are suggesting, and I am paraphrasing here, that if you, the customer, are in a certain situation, and if you throw a wrench into the software machine in a particular way, you may be able to trick the software into standing up and limping across the finish line.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

gcamp54 — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 20:52:56 GMT

Yes, Turbo Tax is giving me the warning in the “review” before you file. From another poster with the same problem, it appears that the $ amount people under 75 years of age would claim for a full year in 2024 is not being recognized as the correct amount for 2024 and any figure over the 2023 amount triggers a warning. My slip shows $8,618.04, that’s what I entered but I get this warning: The OAS reported exceeds the expected limit of $8,618.04 (under 75).
Whether this is a CRA issue or a Turbo Tax issue, I don’t know. Turbo Tax is aware of this for over a month but still no updates to fix it yet.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

eastern-skier — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:05:21 GMT

@gcamp54

Complaints about this false T4OAS warning message in the review are popping up all over the forum.

The moderators are saying to ignore the false alarm by clicking the button "does not apply to me".

You may have been presented with the option to do this and you did not know at that time to do so.

Perhaps to force the review process to re-initiate again, you may have to erase your T4OAS slip, jump through the EasySteps to the review process, complete the review process, go back and re-insert your T4OAS, and jump to the review section again and do it.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Nobody Special — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 11:51:46 GMT

"My slip shows $8,618.04, that’s what I entered but I get this warning: The OAS reported exceeds the expected limit of $8,618.04 (under 75). "

I would recommend trying $8,618.00 instead and leave the .04 off ...see if it makes a difference because not reporting the .04 is allowed.

Sometimes that's all it takes to "fool" a glitch.

*Also you can try just ignoring the warning as well and see if it allows you to file later on. As long as you are reporting your true income and TT allows it to be filed....no worries.

Re: When did TurboTax become the worst tax filing software?

Elcee — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 21:13:22 GMT

Thanks for the advice. It is easy to understand and do. It doesn't apply to me this year, I just like how you positively responded to an issue.