TurboTax Mac sucked this year

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I sometimes use PC TurboTax, sometimes Mac. Generally been happy with the program for decades except a few years ago when they copy-protected the program. Used another tax program for a couple of years but went back after TurboTax quit copy-protecting.

Always use Home & Business version.

This year it was crash-city on my Mac laptop. Must have crashed 20 times. Most recent Mac OS updates on the laptop.

Finally suffered thru to the end hitting Save after each field entry (so as not to lose work when it would randomly crash).

Then went to efile, and it would get to the "transmitting" stage and crash. Crash report contained lots and lots of java threads. Didn't bother to read thru the crash report to find the offending thread. Doesn't matter.

Tried it about 5 times, restarting, etc. Looked on the TurboTax support pages and tried some things. No Success.

Then I installed TurboTax Mac to the MacPro, 8 cores, 16 GB RAM, 8 TB hard drive space, completely up to date Mac OS. It did the same dam thing, crashing on efile transmit.

Called Tech Support. The lady was nice, took a lot of time and tried real hard. Nothing she suggested worked. So she finally sent me a download link for TurboTax Winders.

Loaded up TurboTax Winders, and it can't open the Mac TurboTax file. All the documentation says its sposed to be able to open Mac TurboTax files. Grrr.

Well at least it wasn't so broken that it couldn't print the tax return, so I can mail it tomorrow and only be a day late.

Other than that I had a wonderful day.

Next year ain't gonna buy turbotax.

[Oh Shoot]

I used the freebie TaxAct from TaxAct.com, recommended by a tax preparer friend.

This was first year since '96 my taxes were simple enough that I felt confident doing them, though I couldn't have done them without some kind of puter proggie guide, though it looked like it might have handled previous years, too.

I feel the gummit should have to reimburse me all the years I had to pay someone else to do them. Have to pay money to figure out how to pay the gummit, what a concept.

- OS

[enfield]

I wasn't thrilled with the Windows version of TT Home & Business this year, but at least it didn't crash.

The interview process missed some obvious sources of income and deductions -- ones that I had used in previous years -- even though I did import last year's data.

I've used TT since 1989 - back in the days when you had to hand-copy your data to the IRS tax forms.

I don't e-file. I ALWAYS mail a paper copy. I hope the bassards go blind reading them.

[KahrMan]

Use the online version of TurboTax. I quit buying the software a few years ago. The online version is simple, quick and easy to use. It keeps all your info for the next year so all you have to do is change a few numbers and you are good to go.

[Westwindmike]

Maybe next year you shouldn't wait till the last day in case this happens again.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Maybe next year you shouldn't wait till the last day in case this happens again.

Hi Mike

I downloaded TurboTax Friday but one of the raid 1 pair of system discs on the Win 7 machine (only a year old) went bad, and coincidentally one of the backup raid 1 pair of 1.5 year-old drives in the Mac Pro had gone down a couple of days before, so spent most of saturday taking down all the computers and blowing 6 months of dust out of them, replacing drives and rebuilding the raids.

It was like pulling teeth because the Win 7 backup took 24 hours to finish an external drive backup. Started the backup Friday afternoon and the full backup wasn't finished until Saturday afternoon so I could feel kinda-sorta safe replacing the drive and hoping the boot raid would rebuild as advertised.

Anyway, I never get a refund and tax is the least pleasant chore of the year, so it is a tradition to wait for the deadline.

Hi Kahrman

I don't want my tax info on some private company's servers. Ain't gonna use an online tax program. Considering how poor this years version of Mac Turbotax worked, inspires little confidence that they could keep my data secure on their servers. I keep financial info on a laptop which never goes online except to rarely check financial records.

Hi Enfield

Just started efiling a couple of years ago. For years thought just like you, that at least make em type my info from paper. But efiling is more convenient and maybe it is less error prone. It would be a pain to get audited because of a clerk's typing mistake.

Have used TT since the early days too. It would usually have a bug here or there, but tax is complicated enough that one would expect occasional bugs. It ought to at least run more than 10 minutes without crashing, though.

Its so much better than pre computers. Back in the late 1970's was on the road one year. Had an early TI programmable calculator I really liked, an old LED TTL contraption that would suck an alkaline 9V battery dry in two hours.

It was fun in spite of the warts, but sometimes if you clicked a key it would double-stroke and it wasn't always convenient to un-do a mistake and chain calculations were "iffy" because any mistake could mess up the calc and you had to start over.

Sitting in the hotel room floor in the wee hours, sorting receipts into monthly stacks in a big circle on the floor.

Then sort the time-sequential paper receipts by category, and add up all the numbers for each stack two times if a sum had the same answer twice, and add up the numbers for a stack more than twice if the first two sums differed. Then transfer the sums to the IRS forms. Those were the days.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

This is the first year I didn't have any problems

at all with TT windows. I always file on the last

day, because I usually pay them.

Yeppers, like OS said, we should bill the gov for

all we have to pay for filling out those dumb

returns. Intuit loves it, though. That company

would go under if the Fair Tax ever passes.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Erik88]

I use the free online TurboTax software and I've never had any problems. My taxes are really really easy though.

[MacGyver]

I'd love to see some real competition come out for Intuit. I use three of their products, QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax. They come out with a new version every year, but have really failed to innovate because of the lack of competition in that space. Really, the last major thing that happened was their acquistion of Mint.com, and nothing has come from that.

There's a lot of money to be made in that space. Somebody needs to get in there and innovate!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I'm still using quicken 2006 pc which doesn't have intuit support anymore, but doesn't need support because it works fine as-is for my needs and will probably work for many years to come unless microsoft goes off the deep end with future incompatible system changes. I run it in Fusion running Vista on the mac laptop I keep the financial stuff on.

Been using quicken since it came out either Mac or PC versions, but the 2006 version didn't add anything I really needed except a couple of things they should have had a long time ago, such as easier ways to delete bad entries and easier ways to go between an accounts view and a reconcile view. Have looked at feature lists of later releases, and haven't seen any features worth an upgrade to me. In fact, the screen shots and feature descriptions made it sound like I may like the later versions less than the 2006 version.

After having a financial acct hacked some years back and never knowing if it was hacked by stealing external server data or a keylogger I never could find on one of my computers, maybe I'm too paranoid but consider the act of signing on to the bank or credit card site kinda like a trip to a bad neighborhood in town. It will probably turn out OK but there are certain odds you will get robbed. Best not to do it any more than necessary. A well-hidden keylogger can be very difficult to find, so even if you have looked real hard on yer computer for a keylogger doesn't mean there isn't one in there.

Just sayin, I don't use automatic features to routinely suck data off bank and credit card sites, so I don't need those features. IMO it is less risky to receive paper statements and maybe have the mailbox ripped off, than routinely do it online and maybe eventually get tapped by a hacker.

Neither Quicken or Quickbooks follow slavishly the classic model of double-entry bookkeeping, but it works good enough for my needs.

I had hoped that the Quicken 2006 added invoice feature would do me some good, but it doesn't work the way I do invoices and turned out pretty useless. I wanted something that would act like a work log. That I could type in hours on a calendar every day and at the end of the month it would tally hours over the month and print a monthly invoice with dates, hours, and sums.

Wrote a little program to do that and used it for a few years, but its lately generally faster just to monthly type up an Open Office word processor document. Writing a mutant calendar/daytimer/invoice creation program was more work than I wanted to invest to get it slick enough to be worth the trouble to use. Such a program would be worth writing commercially if there was a big enough market, but it was too much trouble to maintain for just my personal use.

[Caster]

1040ez envelope and a stamp. Keep your fancy gimmicks.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

1040ez envelope and a stamp. Keep your fancy gimmicks.

I'd go that route too if the EZ wouldn't cost thousands in extra tax. Actually, I'm not sure the law would allow me to file an EZ even if I was willing to pay tax on all the forgone business expenses. Maybe they would just take the money if I wanted that badly to keep it simple.

Its not like I'm getting rich, but if you even run a fruit stand and pay tax on your expenses, you would owe more tax than you really took home at the end of the day.

Edited April 20, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[Oh Shoot]

1040ez envelope and a stamp. Keep your fancy gimmicks.

Works, if you don't have biz income/depreciation, investment income, lots of other stuff.

Plus, there's TN state income tax for some of us.

- OS

[Caster]

Yeah I get it. I mean, I don't even BEGIN to understand, but I get it. I don't understand what's wrong with a flat rate tax. If they want 10%, take it and leave me the †††† alone. You made 10K last year you pay 1K you made 100K you owe 10. Fire half the IRS, sell off the excess computers they won't need and I bet you a dollar and a quarter it would work just fine. Ohh wait, no it wouldn't. The fortune 500 guys wouldn't allow themselves to actually be as accountable as the middle class.

For the believers out there, we know that standard practice for tithes is 10%. Well if God can get by on 10% why can't this useless moronic government of ours?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I'm in total agreement, Caster.

Even with a flat income tax (as opposed to natl sales tax or whatever)-- Businesses large and small might still have a lot of paperwork.

If the govt had a flat tax and just a single-sheet form for everybody to send in-- They would have to assume that businesses large and small know how to figure their actual profit, and that the businesses are declaring the actual true profit on that single Income line on the sheet.

Just about any business would be tempted to take advantage of that situation to minimize profit on private bookkeeping that they don't expect to show the govt.

So there would still be lots of rules and standards and forms for businesses to fill out even with a flat tax. Changing the tax tables wouldn't reduce the needed paperwork to discourage people from cheating the govt blind on the tax bill.

You can't just make it so simple that everybody pays tax on gross receipts unless the tax is real low like 1 percent. And even in some cases 1 percent of gross would still be punitive to some kinds of low-margin business.

If you have a fruit stand and sell $1000 a day of fruit, and you have $950 of expenses, and actually make $50 a day-- At ten percent flat tax on gross receipts, the fruit stand owner would owe $100 tax on every day he only made $50 profit.

So that is why the paperwork would still have to be there, so the fruit stand owner can count off his expenses and only pay the 10% on the $50 he actually made.

[Oh Shoot]

...Even with a flat income tax (as opposed to natl sales tax or whatever)-- Businesses large and small might still have a lot of paperwork....

Fair Tax resolves every conceivable existing problem.

Everybody pays, illegals, black marketeers, everybody.

BUT, we would all pay anonymously, and gummit would have NO control over segments of the population by tweaking tax code as now. Could not reward who they want and punish who they want, could not influence voting blocs, etc. Those control issues is why it won't happen.

One other downside ... all the models show that the gummit would be rollin' in dough, from federal down to city levels. Which of course means they'd still spend it all and want more.

- OS

[vontar]

I used the freebie TaxAct from TaxAct.com, recommended by a tax preparer friend.

This was first year since '96 my taxes were simple enough that I felt confident doing them, though I couldn't have done them without some kind of puter proggie guide, though it looked like it might have handled previous years, too.

I feel the gummit should have to reimburse me all the years I had to pay someone else to do them. Have to pay money to figure out how to pay the gummit, what a concept.

- OS

I agree. I hate doing my taxes. It should be simiple enough that I am cut though out the year the RIGHT amount that I should not have to deal with paper work later in my opinion. If I work, I work and it should be taken care of then. O well I know nothing is that simple but since that is my only income it should be

[Guest mds3d]

On the original subject of programs... I have used H&R block at home for several years. The first few times i did a double check with my tax guy and he couldn't save me any money. I think it is pretty easy to use. It is also compatable with most financial software even the ones from Intuit.

On another note, i dont think the current tax system is completely broke but i do benefit from many deductions and credits. They mostly come from school expenses and our mortage. I dont know if I would pay less or more with a flat tax rate. It seems tomme that would actually bebefit those at the top and hurt those at the bottom.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Fair Tax resolves every conceivable existing problem.

Everybody pays, illegals, black marketeers, everybody.

BUT, we would all pay anonymously, and gummit would have NO control over segments of the population by tweaking tax code as now. Could not reward who they want and punish who they want, could not influence voting blocs, etc. Those control issues is why it won't happen.

One other downside ... all the models show that the gummit would be rollin' in dough, from federal down to city levels. Which of course means they'd still spend it all and want more.

- OS

I like Boortz and his Fair Tax proposal. It has many good aspects.

There are quibbles. One thing I wonder about is that in his plan no tax would be charged on used goods. Only new goods.

That is theoretically correct to avoid double-taxing anything, but it could cause market distortions which may not be beneficial. I suspect it may be better to violate the "no-double-taxation" principle and tax all transactions. This should also result in a lower tax rate for the same gov income, because more transactions would be taxed.

I have several examples of market distortion if you never tax used goods, but here is one--

Lets say the natl sales tax is 20 percent-- A new $30,000 car will cost $36,000 to drive it off the lot. If the owner keeps the car in good shape for a year, there are good odds that the owner can sell the car for MORE THAN THE ORIGINAL RETAIL PRICE, if it is un-taxed. I think there would be a lot of people who would rather pay maybe $31,000 for a 1 year old car in good shape compared to $30,000 + $6,000 tax on a new car.

This would make it difficult for manufacturers and dealers to price compete against their own last-years products. It would reduce demand for new goods and raise demand for old goods. Lower sales quantity of new stuff would depress manufacturing jobs for making new stuff.

We would develop a much larger segment of "flea market" type businesses merely trading back and forth old goods taking advantage of the tax differential. It would depress manufacturing jobs.

If everything new and used was taxed, this market distortion would go away. The guy with the one year old car would not be able to sell sell the used car more expensive than a brand-new car, and the new car dealer wouldn't be working against a vast price disadvantage against the stuff he sold last year.

Most state sales tax applies to used items, so the Fair Tax would be more similar to state sales tax which we already know does not severely distort the market.

[enfield]

I'm still using quicken 2006 pc which doesn't have intuit support anymore, but doesn't need support because it works fine as-is for my needs and will probably work for many years to come unless microsoft goes off the deep end with future incompatible system changes.

Still using Quicken 2004 here. No reason to upgrade yet.

[Guest nicemac]

Hmmm, I spent hours in Turbo Tax for Mac this year with nary a hiccup. I have used TT since it replaced MacInTax years ago and used that since the mid-90's. Maybe other issues on the Mac causing problems? Are you using Snow Leopard?

Edited April 20, 2011 by nicemac

[Oh Shoot]

.... It seems tomme that would actually bebefit those at the top and hurt those at the bottom.

(approximate)

The top 1% pay 20% of total personal income taxes.

The top 10% pay 70% ...

The bottom 50% pay 2% ...

47% pay no taxes at all.

One of (the numerous) reasons America has lost its national ethos is that almost half the population has no vested interest in the country at all. Not even ten bucks worth a year.

- OS

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hmmm, I spent hours in Turbo Tax for Mac this year with nary a hiccup. I have used TT since it replaced MacInTax years ago and used that since the mid-90's. Maybe other issues on the Mac causing problems? Are you using Snow Leopard?

Hi nicemac

Dunno what was the problem. There are some web complaints of folks having my error, and other folks having similar crash errors from different causes such as latest Mac OSX updates changing available fonts in the font/pdf folder. I checked on those reported factors and none seemed relevant in my case.

Most software nowadays has enough protection that it will alert an error rather than outright crashing. Except when I'm debugging problems with software I'm writing, I can't recall the last time a released commercial program outright crashed on me, either on Mac or Win. It is vanishingly rare nowadays.

Both the MacPro and MacBook are Snow Leopard with latest updates. I did an online update check on both machines this weekend before messing with Turbotax. Neither has given any indication of instability on other software. I use the machines constantly and would have noticed.

One of the things the tech support lady suggested was to turn my firewall off! Whaaa??? Gotta turn off the firewall before the program will work? Anyway I turned it off for a test, and it didn't fix the repeatable crash.

[Guest nicemac]

Most software nowadays has enough protection that it will alert an error rather than outright crashing. Except when I'm debugging problems with software I'm writing, I can't recall the last time a released commercial program outright crashed on me, either on Mac or Win. It is vanishingly rare nowadays.

Man, I hope not–I will be out of a job. Seriously, I support approximately 400 Macs in a publishing environment. They crash plenty, especially whenever Adobe or Micro$oft are involved…

Intuit through the years has written some good software. I have only had a few bugs with older versions of Quicken, never with TurboTax or back in the day, MacInTax.

Edited April 20, 2011 by nicemac

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Man, I hope not–I will be out of a job. Seriously, I support approximately 400 Macs in a publishing environment. They crash plenty, especially whenever Adobe or Micro$oft are involved…

Intuit through the years has written some good software. I have only had a few bugs with older versions of Quicken, never with TurboTax or back in the day, MacInTax.

Yeah, some users can tear up a brick or destroy an anvil.

I never had issues with Intuit til this year.

Lately guess all I use on Mac is typical apple programs that come with the OS plus XCode, Open Office, VMWare Fusion. Photoshop is on PC the last few years. But really, can't recall the last time a program "unexpectedly quit" except programs in development and this years TurboTax. Guess TurboTax just doesn't like me.

The only thing I did "unusual" in TT was to use the "delete" button on some many-years-old section 179 assets to remove them from the asset list. That may have triggered some bad bug in the file parsing or whatever. Wasn't keeping notes, but perhaps the crashes started after the delete actions. But if they offer a delete button it ought to actually work!

With TT, if you entered something like a memory stick or hard drive as a section 179 asset ten years ago, it stays in the asset list forever til you delete it or "dispose" it, when actually the item is so long gone you can't even remember what year it got tossed in the trash bin. Nowadays you can safely expense things like that, but in the past you could get in trouble unless you depreciated it. The alternate "dispose" process in TT takes a lot of mouse clicks to answer "no I didn't sell it or give it away" etc. Not worth the effort on lots of old ephemeral cheap hardware items.

From the crash report looks like TT 2010 is mostly java. The tech support lady asked if my java is up to date. Maybe in spite of running all the apple updates that was a problem. If they make a general-duty program they are selling to non-tech-savvy grannies, and if it absolutely depends on the most up-to-date java, maybe it needs an installer that will check and make needed updates.

Puter stability is application dependent though. Had an old dual processor PowerPC desktop machine running OS 9. The thing was a fabulous audio workstation running Digital Performer, and still runs fine today on rare times I turn it on. It would run DP rock-solid forever without malfs. But the OS9 was so buggy you could crash it within a half hour of simply browsing the web. It was kinda pitiful as a general duty puter.