Tax time again

So I started working on taxes…for the 2nd time. No, my documents are still not all available. I’ll need to wait until 8-March for that data. In the meantime let me tell you about my experience with Turbo Tax. I’m pretty sure I found a few bugs.

1. One irritating bug is a result of auto loading my documents. I ended up in an endless loop of importing and then Turbo Tax prompted me to review the items I just imported but instead of taking me to the review wizard it just prompted another import. After messing around with that for an hour or so I ended up deleting the entries…one at a time with a wonderful refresh after each delete. It seems that was the source of my problems. After deleting everything I performed a load and I was able to go review the documents and walk through the wizard.
2. The 2nd bug came from loading a 1099-INT that contained multiple accounts. Instead of creating the form using the forms actual data, it instead created a record for each of the cash accounts summarized with the form. Checking and savings for example. Not sure why it didn’t load the form as the form specified but I just manually entered the form and deleted the extra data.
3. The 3rd bug was weird. I think it had to do with a default setting. After each load of the 1099 DIVs the system’s review wizard auto checked the box ‘I have data in other boxes’ which expanded the screen to view the 0s propagated in each field. So while technically I had data in other fields, the data was irrelevant. This caused a strange behavior that prompted me with a 1202 discount option where I was asked to enter the amount of discount of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 100% options. There is some rule about capital gains taxes. Navigating back to the form trying to figure out what it was asking me I noticed one of the capital gains boxes was blank. I entered 0 and attempted the wizard again and this time it did not ask me about the 1201 rule. So the blank data was causing a logic error.
4. The forth bug (possible by design) prompted me with an error on some forms saying the State was missing. Funny thing is Texas wasn’t listed as an option. Removing the check from the box ‘I have data in other boxes’ seemed to allow me to pass this error check.

It was a frustrating experience and I came to the conclusion that even with software, you have to have a little intelligence to actually use the software correctly. How many people are just accepting what the software tells them and aren’t really thinking through the process. Can’t we just have a flat tax please? Why do I have to spend money and my time to tell the government how much I owe them.