TurboTax Review

The editorial content on this page is based solely on objective, independent assessments by our writers and is not influenced by advertising or partnerships. It has not been provided or commissioned by any third party. However, we may receive compensation when you click on links to products or services offered by our partners. For those who want to get their taxes done quickly and with as little headache as possible, TurboTax is the leading contender.

To maximize their deductions and report personal and business income and expenses, along with investment income and rental property income. It’ll help you file your return quickly and easily — and for most turbotax self employed live taxpayers, TurboTax’s higher price will be worth the peace of mind it provides. One of the biggest complaints about TurboTax is the ease with which it attempts to upgrade users to the next-tier product.

What Is TurboTax Live?

As the State Taxes section is state-specific, I’m not going into detail here other than stating that TurboTax’s approach appears to be quite comprehensive. The next few screens will go over your state tax situation. After your W-2 information is complete, you move on to your other income.

While preparing your taxes may not be the most enjoyable activity, there’s no reason why it can’t be easy. TurboTax Self-Employed really does make the process easy, particularly for small business owners who may be struggling with completing a Schedule C for the first time. A subscription to TurboTax Self-Employed Live is worth it if you want your income reviewed by a tax expert before you file.

For simple tax returns with student loan interest or college tuition: H&R Block Free Online

Because the test tax return I was preparing at the time was a very simple return — just W-2 income — I found this offer for audit protection pretty distasteful. Although TurboTax isn’t the cheapest tax filing option for most users, it’s extremely user-friendly with a user interface and various features that make tax filing easy. If you want to make tax season even more hands-off, you can always ttps://turbo-tax.org/ upgrade to a full-service package. Similar to TurboTax, other programs offer tax expert assistance. TaxAct provides professional tax expert assistance, which includes help from CPAs, Enrolled Agents and tax attorneys to help with filing but at no additional cost. For users with straightforward tax returns to pricier packages for people who’d rather turn their taxes over to a professional.

• If you want someone to represent you in front of the IRS, you’ll need TurboTax’s audit defense product, called MAX.
• For example, you can import W-2 data if your employer supports this option or upload a copy of your W-2 to automatically fill in the details.
• TurboTax includes the TurboTax Free plan, which is only suitable for simple tax returns.
• But it also has the easiest user experience, in my opinion.
• It’s set up kind of like a game where all you do is answer questions as they pop up on the screen.
• Once you have all of your tax paperwork, file early, and consider opting in to the IRS’s IP PIN service to protect your identity.

The upgrades gives customers access to unlimited tax advice and an expert final review. TurboTax Premier can be upgraded to TurboTax Live Premier. 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. It makes reporting these transactions easy, even there are a lot of them — the software can import thousands of transactions directly from brokers.