This provides exactly the same service as every $150+ overpriced tax filing product you've ever paid (ie been scammed) for. Highly recommend. Hopefully the new IRS software will make even this obsolete.
I am not sure how to evaluate security of my data across Saas tax web apps, but I am warier of smaller scrapier players on that front having worked at startups.
Their website is not reassuring to a web/database developer like myself who is aware of some of the loopholes, threats (insiders, developers) and protection options (separating db admin from masking admin, etc). They do/claim the very basics and that's about it.
I do appreciate their claim to not resell access to mydata at all. I have no confidence with Intuit when I have repeatedly evaluated their language/claims on that topic.
Can you put in your logins for all your brokerages and investment accounts and it pulls in the tax data automatically? This is hugely important for me since I make a bunch of trades (not enough to be a day trader, but enough to be annoying for tax purposes).
No, but you can enter a few numbers off your 1099-B and mail your trade history to the IRS. It took me about 30 minutes to enter a W-2, a few 1099-INTs, and 3 brokerage statements (plus 1099-DIV, futures, and 1256 contracts).
That’s too complicated and not immediate enough. Manual entering? Printing out and making a packet of trade histories for all my accounts, figuring out what address to send it to, manually going to the post office, waiting for confirmation of receipt weeks down the line, extra scrutiny because an agent has to manually review your paper copies etc. Yeah no thanks, that’s the opposite of super quick and simple. Super quick and simple is entering a couple of logins and clicking next and being done with federal and state taxes in 10 mins.
This is why you can’t take reviews of contentious software at face value. People are so sick of TurboTax (I am too) and their lobbying shenanigans that they will give glowing reviews to deficient competitors.
Yeah, that $150 is totally worth it for me because until the free software automatically integrates with external portals, TT is actually providing a valued service.
You don't have to submit a printout of every single trade... just totals. Like the parent said, it's like 3-4 boxes you fill out/copy-paste from your exchange paperwork.
You do need to be able to provide substantiated figures if you are audited. Which is easy, you print out the paperwork from your exchange...
Not exactly worth paying for that convenience. You can still eFile too.
