2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
MnD
Posts: 5195
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:41 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by MnD »

pshonore wrote:One more time - ALL versions of TurboTax (including Basic) will produce and process all commonly used tax forms. The higher up you go, there are more bells and whistles but they all come up with the same result.
For reasons associated with vulture investing in bankrupt GM bonds my schedule D was 10 pages last year and TT basic did a wonderful job. Downloads everything right from the broker.
I believe I've used TT basic ever since there was such an offering and it works great.

Our state has their own "free" on-line filing system for state income taxes, so TT Basic does a nice job on a medium complexity 25 page length federal return in a typical year, and I have no interest in paying for state return filing capability.
70/30 AA for life, Global market cap equity. Rebalance if fixed income <25% or >35%. Weighted ER< .10%. 5% of annual portfolio balance SWR, Proportional (to AA) withdrawals.
User avatar
Hexdump
Posts: 1626
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:28 am
Location: Houston, Texas

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by Hexdump »

pshonore wrote:One more time - ALL versions of TurboTax (including Basic) will produce and process all commonly used tax forms. The higher up you go, there are more bells and whistles but they all come up with the same result.
I used the premier version last year.

pshonore or any that know, will the "basic" also handle the K-1 schedule (form 1065) and associated 8582 ?
By handle I mean take care of prior year rollovers and automatic postings to multiple forms.

I guess I could start with a Basic and if I see it lacking, upgrade it.
I don't need a state return.

thanks
User avatar
bUU
Posts: 608
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 10:41 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by bUU »

It would be really great if there was a table showing every "wizard" in TurboTax, with an indication of which ones were in which product version.
arkerr123
Posts: 92
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:17 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by arkerr123 »

Dont buy the Turbotax box.

Go to their website, type in all your information, and see what they will give you in a tax refund. You can wait until the end to pay for turbo tax... so if you dont think it is enough, you can still go elsewhere without paying a dime.

Granted, I have not found a real person that can beat Turbotax.
tj
Posts: 9368
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:10 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by tj »

What does that even mean, "beat Turbotax?" The tax law is the tax law. Turbotax doesn't crunch any special numbers.
User avatar
bUU
Posts: 608
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 10:41 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by bUU »

I suspect the implication was "finding more deductions" or some-such. Generally speaking, a program like TurboTax can be (and is) written to ask practically all the right questions, that if answered accurately, should yield the proper (lowest) tax. I would suspect that there might be a few questions that TurboTax doesn't ask, which 99% (made-up number) of the tax preparers out there probably don't ask either, while TurboTax probably asks more of the correct questions more consistently than many tax preparers, so TurboTax "wins" on that level. Now, presumably, another piece of tax software could interview the user somewhat different and thereby follow several more lucrative paths and prompt more accurate responses, and therefore arrive as a "better" result, but if there is such a thing, I don't know it. By contrast, if your situation is within 1% (made-up number) of situations where tax preparers are able to do "better" than TurboTax, then that specific tax preparer would be better - eh?
pshonore
Posts: 8212
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 2:21 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by pshonore »

Hexdump wrote:
pshonore wrote:One more time - ALL versions of TurboTax (including Basic) will produce and process all commonly used tax forms. The higher up you go, there are more bells and whistles but they all come up with the same result.
I used the premier version last year.

pshonore or any that know, will the "basic" also handle the K-1 schedule (form 1065) and associated 8582 ?
By handle I mean take care of prior year rollovers and automatic postings to multiple forms.

I guess I could start with a Basic and if I see it lacking, upgrade it.
I don't need a state return.

thanks
Yes, Basic version handles K1, Form 8582, suspension of passive losses (assuming you answer the questions correctly, etc,) Sales of an MLP (including
freeing up suspended losses)
marc515
Posts: 168
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:12 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by marc515 »

pshonore wrote:One more time - ALL versions of TurboTax (including Basic) will produce and process all commonly used tax forms. The higher up you go, there are more bells and whistles but they all come up with the same result.
Can you use the Basic for rental property and other capital gains and losses?
sscritic
Posts: 21853
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:36 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by sscritic »

marc515 wrote: Can you use the Basic for rental property and other capital gains and losses?
What forms do you need? The list is here: click on included forms.
Included Forms | Computer Requirements | Security
http://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-tax ... /basic.jsp

Quiz question: what forms are included in Deluxe that are not included in basic?
http://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-tax ... deluxe.jsp

Next quiz question: what forms are included in Premier that are not in basic? Not in deluxe?
http://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-tax ... remier.jsp

You will do everyone a great service by answering these questions. Thank you.
User avatar
Hexdump
Posts: 1626
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:28 am
Location: Houston, Texas

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by Hexdump »

If I decide to start off with the Deluxe, will it tell me if I need to upgrade to Premier in order to post to a form that is not included in the Deluxe ?
And I am hoping that it will be painless in that I won't lose the already entered data.

It's starting to look like the deluxe meet my requirements.
sscritic
Posts: 21853
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:36 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by sscritic »

Hexdump wrote:If I decide to start off with the Deluxe, will it tell me if I need to upgrade to Premier in order to post to a form that is not included in the Deluxe ?
Which form is that? Did you compare the lists of included forms as I suggested to marc515? I gave all the links you need in my post.
User avatar
Hexdump
Posts: 1626
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:28 am
Location: Houston, Texas

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by Hexdump »

sscritic wrote:
Hexdump wrote:If I decide to start off with the Deluxe, will it tell me if I need to upgrade to Premier in order to post to a form that is not included in the Deluxe ?
Which form is that? Did you compare the lists of included forms as I suggested to marc515? I gave all the links you need in my post.
Thanks SS, and those links are a God-Send, but therein lies the rub. I checked my 2011 return and didn't see anything unusual that is not in the Deluxe version.
But I was trying to anticipate what happens if I bump into a necessary form.

I read this on the Premier description and had to ask myself if the Deluxe would do this, what-seems-to-me, to be pretty elementary.
I think that Deluxe might have the forms but they might need to be filled in manually. If Premier can fill the forms in from downloads from Vanguard and Fidelity, that alone is worth the price of the upgrade.
===========================
1) Imports Your Investment Info — Saves time by automatically importing your investment info directly from your financial institution.
2) Helps You Accurately Report Investment Sales — Walks you through reporting sales of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
3) Automatically calculates capital gains/losses and keeps track of those that carry over to future tax returns.
============================

And I cannot imaging there are many readers here that did not have these types of investment activity requiring these features.

:oops: :D I talked myself back into buying the premier.
User avatar
bUU
Posts: 608
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 10:41 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by bUU »

I think it is easy to talk myself into believing that whatever version I want to buy is better. The years I preferred Deluxe over Premier I discounted or ignored the advantages Premier offered, and focused on the fact that I "could" do what I needed to do; and the years I preferred Premier over Deluxe I valued the advantages it offered in excess of the difference in price. I still would like to see a clear delineation of the wizards available in each version. That's really what this is all about. Though, the difference in price is so small, in the grand scheme of things, that it seems silly to me to worry about spending the extra money for Premier, as I do, these days.
User avatar
grabiner
Advisory Board
Posts: 35307
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:58 pm
Location: Columbia, MD

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by grabiner »

Hexdump wrote:I read this on the Premier description and had to ask myself if the Deluxe would do this, what-seems-to-me, to be pretty elementary.
I think that Deluxe might have the forms but they might need to be filled in manually. If Premier can fill the forms in from downloads from Vanguard and Fidelity, that alone is worth the price of the upgrade.
===========================
1) Imports Your Investment Info — Saves time by automatically importing your investment info directly from your financial institution.
2) Helps You Accurately Report Investment Sales — Walks you through reporting sales of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
3) Automatically calculates capital gains/losses and keeps track of those that carry over to future tax returns.
============================
If you use Quicken, then any version of TurboTax can import the information from Quicken, so you don't need to import from your brokerage.

And you still have to check that it is right. If you have sales of non-covered shares, your brokerage doesn't know the amount of capital gains. (I use Quicken and get the information correct there, although I expect to have one problem this year. I sold an ETF for a capital loss after it paid out a long-term capital gain; under IRS rules, an amount equal to the gain is converted from short-term to long-term loss if you held the ETF less than six months.)


Carry-over to future tax returns is done automatically by all versions of TurboTax as long as you used TurboTax the previous year, and similarly for other software. Even if you can't do it automatically, that's just one entry to copy; if you had $8000 in capital losses for 2011 and took $3000 of your taxes, then you have $5000 to carry over to 2012.
Wiki David Grabiner
nonnie
Posts: 3014
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:05 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by nonnie »

Hexdump wrote: I think that Deluxe might have the forms but they might need to be filled in manually. If Premier can fill the forms in from downloads from Vanguard and Fidelity, that alone is worth the price of the upgrade.
For years my partner used Premier, I used Deluxe-- then we started living together and now use Deluxe. He cannot tell the difference. You can just as easily download all stock data from brokers with Deluxe as you can with Premier.
montanagirl
Posts: 1805
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 3:55 pm
Location: Montana

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by montanagirl »

Doesn't anyone use TaxCut? I feel out of it.
User avatar
nisiprius
Advisory Board
Posts: 52216
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:33 am
Location: The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, flattened at the poles, is my abode.--O. Henry

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by nisiprius »

caroljm36 wrote:Doesn't anyone use TaxCut? I feel out of it.
I use H&R Block At Home. I don't think it's called TaxCut any more.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
User avatar
HueyLD
Posts: 9790
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:30 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by HueyLD »

nisiprius wrote:I use H&R Block At Home. I don't think it's called TaxCut any more.
IMO, HRB's products are very comparable to TT's products. The only difference is price. TT is more popular because it is the first major retail tax software and has built a large customer base. As human nature would have it, people tend to stay with familiar systems even at a higher cost.

I know an accounting professor who tests TT and HRB tax software annually and finds virtually no difference between the two. So, the HRB tax software provides more bang for the buck for a lot of people.

Note: I have no affiliation with either Intuit or HRB.
sscritic
Posts: 21853
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:36 am

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by sscritic »

I started with MacInTax for Windows. It was the only program I knew that would print out IRS forms using a dot matrix printer.
The world`s best tax-preparation program, again this year, is the delightful ``MacInTax`` (Softview Inc.). As we`ve noted here in the past, this program by itself is a strong argument for buying a Macintosh. MacInTax puts a sharp replica of the IRS forms on the screen, and you use the mouse to move down line by line. It`s stretching a little to say that anything makes filling out a tax return fun, but MacInTax certainly makes it easy.
...
MacInTax prints out all IRS forms on plain paper, giving you a perfect typewritten tax return. This process is fairly fast on a Laserwriter and pretty slow on a dot-matrix printer, but in either case the forms come out beautifully.
...
MS-DOS users should also consider a program called ``TurboTax``(ChipSoft), which works beautifully. It doesn`t give you quite as sharp a replica of the forms on the screen as TaxView, but TurboTax is faster and a lot easier to use for folks who don`t have a ton of memory or a mouse on the PC.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989 ... -irs-forms

Do you remember when your PC didn't have a mouse?
YOUR TAXES; Macintax Zips Through Forms
A Macintosh program that costs less than $100 may offer the least painful way to complete a 1989 tax return - short of getting someone else to do it....
Macintax for Windows is also available for users of more powerful model I.B.M.-PC's or compatibles.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/04/techn ... forms.html

Unfortunately, MacInTax was taken over by a large company that ruined it. :)
MacInTax was originally a Softview product until 1991 when it became a ChipSoft product. Then in 1994 it became an Intuit product.
Default User BR
Posts: 7502
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:32 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by Default User BR »

nisiprius wrote:
caroljm36 wrote:Doesn't anyone use TaxCut? I feel out of it.
I use H&R Block At Home. I don't think it's called TaxCut any more.
I use it as well.


Brian
User avatar
tc101
Posts: 3810
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:18 pm
Location: Atlanta - Retired in 2004 at age 54

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by tc101 »

I didn't read over the whole thread, so if someone else menitioned this I appologize.
TurboTax is much cheaper on Amazon than Vanguard.

I am Voyager Select.

TT Delux + state - Vanguard $49.99, Amazon $39.99
TT Premier + state - Vanguard $74.99, Amazon $56.71
. | The most important thing you should know about me is that I am not an expert.
chaz
Posts: 13604
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:44 pm

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by chaz »

Turbotax works good for me, and it's free (flagship).
Chaz | | “Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." Woody Allen | | http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
BudgetForWealth
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:03 pm
Contact:

Re: 2012 Turbotax now available at Vanguard Tax Center

Post by BudgetForWealth »

I just bought the Home & Business version on Amazon. The bonus is that there is an ongoing promotion (until tax-day) for a discount for Quicken if you buy both. I was due for an upgrade anyway so I was able to get the 2013 copy of Quicken for half the price. ($35 off Quicken Home & Business).
Long Pham
Post Reply