Filing taxes using the Premium product of Intuit’s Turbo Tax Online this year would require paying $37.45 for the federal and $27.70 for the state filings. Also vexing is that this price reflects the click through discounts from Fidelity. Anyone using Turbo Tax to file taxes for a while can attest to the fact that the price has increased over the years quite a bit. Below is a summary of Turbo Tax’s price increase over the last eight years for the comparable product.
**The prices above are after click through discounts from Fidelity.
That is a price increase of well over 150% in the last eight years. 2006 and 2007 were especially hard on the consumer with the price increase in the 30% range. This year, there was no price increase and that compares to the 2.34% rate increase the previous year.
As far as alternatives, we have tried TaxACT and H&R Block At Home (TaxCut) previously but ultimately stayed with Turbo Tax and used the Deluxe product instead of the Premium product, which brought the cost down to $50.15 (with Fidelity click-through discount) - that is still a $30 premium over TaxACT Ultimate Bundle - if we were first-time online filers, it would have been an easy decision to choose TaxACT. TaxACT was acquired by H&R Block on 10/2010. This is expected to make the consolidated product from H&R Block even more competitive with Turbo Tax in the coming years.
There are a few other options to keep your tax filing costs down:
Upcoming Deadline: - April 15.
Related Posts:
Last Updated: 02/2011.
| Year | Federal | State | Total | YOY % Price Increase |
| 2003 | $24.42 | Free | $24.42 | NA |
| 2004 | $29.95 | Free | $29.95 | 22.65 |
| 2005 | $24.95 | $9.95 | $34.90** | 16.53 |
| 2006 | $27.95 | $17.45 | $45.40** | 30.09 |
| 2007 | $37.45 | $22.45 | $59.90** | 31.94 |
| 2008 | $37.45 | $26.21 | $63.66** | 6.30 |
| 2009 | $37.45 | $27.70 | $65.15** | 2.34 |
| 2010 | $37.45 | $27.70 | $65.15** | 0.00 |
That is a price increase of well over 150% in the last eight years. 2006 and 2007 were especially hard on the consumer with the price increase in the 30% range. This year, there was no price increase and that compares to the 2.34% rate increase the previous year.
As far as alternatives, we have tried TaxACT and H&R Block At Home (TaxCut) previously but ultimately stayed with Turbo Tax and used the Deluxe product instead of the Premium product, which brought the cost down to $50.15 (with Fidelity click-through discount) - that is still a $30 premium over TaxACT Ultimate Bundle - if we were first-time online filers, it would have been an easy decision to choose TaxACT. TaxACT was acquired by H&R Block on 10/2010. This is expected to make the consolidated product from H&R Block even more competitive with Turbo Tax in the coming years.
There are a few other options to keep your tax filing costs down:
- Turbo Tax SnapTax from iPhone and Android can keep your cost to just $14.99. The caveat is that it is for 1040-EZ only. The pricing is about half when compared to the online product.
- Opt for Turbo Tax Desktop Edition
. Going this route saves you around 35% compared to the discounted pricing for the Online Edition. You can choose between a DVD and Download
. Download is slightly cheaper and you get it almost instantly (~5 minutes if you have broadband internet connection).
- Get Turbo Tax Deluxe online edition for free by establishing a banking relationship with State Farm.
Upcoming Deadline: - April 15.
Related Posts:
Last Updated: 02/2011.
2 Comments::
Interesting analysis. Looks like the recession has hit turbo tax as well with price drops this year.
Great blog you have here and as a fellow pf blogger always nice to discover other quality content.
My comments are on my experience with TurboTax 07 and 09. In reporting stock trades manually in '07 I inadvertently entered nonsense numbers for the year of trade. Instead of flagging this as a meaningless year of trade, Turbotax dropped the entry altogether. This was caught by the IRS of course as a stock sale not accounted for. It took 4 exchanges of information with the IRS to clear up this problem. Those of you who have dealt with the IRS can appreciate the stress caused by this mistake.
This year '09 TurboTax online recognized that I had a capital gains loss from '08, but used 1040A which does not have a line for the $3,000 deduction. 1040 which does should have been used. I did not have any stock trades for '09, and this maybe the cause. But trading stocks should not cause carryover losses to be ignored. Not surprisingly, my '09 worksheet showed no capital gains loss carryover to 2010 even though the losses appeared under qualified dividends and capital gains section. . I have used TurboTax since it introduction. In the last few editions, I have noticed a progressive deterioration in attention to potential errors by the user.
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