So, I order Turbotax...

[Muse]

Yearly, I buy Turbotax Premier so I get my investment loss carryover from the 2008 financial debacle (my cash was in a fund that tanked like most everything else).

This year I order TT Premier 2017 "new and sealed" and it comes, unsealed, without the usual cardboard outside wrapping and the disk looks like it was hit with a hammer (not broken, but obvious damage to around 1 square inch of surface). It wouldn't install on either of my Windows 10 laptops. I took pictures of the disk and asked for a return and was refunded my money, told not to send it back. Some person in El Paso, TX.

So I order another and yesterday I get an email from ebay saying it was delivered. The email was stamped 9:10PM (I'm PDT). But I didn't see it with my mail (I got home at 8:25PM, mail was there but didn't include TT).

I'll complain to Ebay but figure I'm just going to have to go to a B&M outfit (probably Costco today) and buy a copy, we're getting closer and closer to Apr. 15. Will Ebay believe me that it wasn't delivered? I don't think a lot of my mailman, I am thinking he may have delivered it to the wrong address. I suppose I could see if it comes today before buying another.

 

[Nashemon]

Will Ebay believe me that it wasn't delivered?

Yes. 100%, IMO. They are buyer friendly in all but few cases. It's the cost of doing business is what they will tell the seller.

Also, good thing B&M's are still around, eh? A few more years and you might've been up shit's creek.

 

[Iron Woode]

Ebay said one of my parcels was delivered but it didn't get to my post office until 2 days later.

 

[pete6032]

I occasionally get Amazon parcels that arrive 2-3 days after they are "delivered."

 

[nakedfrog]

Same thing has happened to me over the last year or two, packages marked delivered that actually show up in my mailbox a day or two later.

 

[Muse]

Ebay said one of my parcels was delivered but it didn't get to my post office until 2 days later.

Aha! Well, I'll figure it's just "delayed," then. I'll give it up to 3 days to appear, then if it doesn't show up, contact ebay and buy same from B&M store hereabouts. I was not aware that "delivered" can lag by days.

 

[Iron Woode]

Aha! Well, I'll figure it's just "delayed," then. I'll give it up to 3 days to appear, then if it doesn't show up, contact ebay and buy same from B&M store hereabouts. I was not aware that "delivered" can lag by days.

It gets better: I am expecting a parcel. Ebay says it will be delivered today. My post office estimates Monday.

Who's correct? I still don't have it yet.

 

[Exterous]

Slightly related Im pretty sure thats just Schedule D right? The download or cd version of Turbo Tax Deluxe includes that along with Schedule C for small businesses

 

[Muse]

Slightly related Im pretty sure thats just Schedule D right? The download or cd version of Turbo Tax Deluxe includes that along with Schedule C for small businesses

Don't know for sure, but the Premier TT is always explained to include support for investments, while Deluxe is not. I am unaware of Deluxe being able to pass along investment loss carryover. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My situation is pretty simple. Unemployed, have savings accounts (i.e. interest), investment accounts with a brokerage that were dormant last year (no activity), social security income, investment loss carryover from years past. What Turbotax do I need?

 

[slayer202]

give it a day, but if it says delivered, ebay might not be able to help

 

[Muse]

give it a day, but if it says delivered, ebay might not be able to help

Didn't come today either. I sent the seller a message saying I'd wait two more days. If not here by Friday I'll have to buy at B&M store. I think I'll call Ebay tomorrow and ask them about this.

Drat the luck. I almost never much care about timeliness a whole lot but the IRS has its deadline, so I do too.

IRS tracking shows it in my town early yesterday morning, out for delivery and delivered, all yesterday, but it's still not here. I have to think maybe my mailman put it in someone else's mail box. That happens occasionally here

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't understand the point of buying expensive software to do taxes when you can just get an accountant to do it. So much easier and less time consuming, and in some cases cheaper. My accountant charges $45. She'll sit down with you and suggest things you can do to maximize your return too. Like one time I ended up having to pay, so we sat down and she told me a bunch of things I would not have otherwise knew I could do. Now I tend to get 1-2k.

 

[Muse]

I don't understand the point of buying expensive software to do taxes when you can just get an accountant to do it. So much easier and less time consuming, and in some cases cheaper. My accountant charges $45. She'll sit down with you and suggest things you can do to maximize your return too. Like one time I ended up having to pay, so we sat down and she told me a bunch of things I would not have otherwise knew I could do. Now I tend to get 1-2k.

Maybe as much as anything it's the fact that I don't know an accountant. I have always done my own taxes and bought Intuit Software's assurances that TT is getting me the best result possible, quite possibly fully naive.

Similarly, I've never called a plumber (just fixed my kitchen sink's plumbing), an electrician, a painter, a carpenter... the list goes on. Now they say a person who represents himself in court has a fool for a client, and I'm sure there's a lot to that. I had good enough grades and a score on the LSAT to get me into law school but the prospect made me shudder.

I plan to call Ebay, my post office and Turbo Tax tomorrow. I hope I can get a live person in each instance. I'd like to ask Turbo Tax which software I need and if Deluxe will do what I need. It seems ridiculous that I need to spend $20 more just to get my loss carryover.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I don't understand the point of buying expensive software to do taxes when you can just get an accountant to do it. So much easier and less time consuming, and in some cases cheaper. My accountant charges $45. She'll sit down with you and suggest things you can do to maximize your return too. Like one time I ended up having to pay, so we sat down and she told me a bunch of things I would not have otherwise knew I could do. Now I tend to get 1-2k.

For some people, but they could probably get by without any help at all.

I used to do my taxes by hand back when I just had a salary, some interest and the dividends and capital gains from a brokerage account.

Then I started getting a K-1 for company stock in an S corporation. That was way too much fun, and I highly doubt I could get a decent accountant to take care of it and the rest for just $45. Not that I'm complaining about making too much money, #firstworldproblems,

 

[Alpha One Seven]

With Amazon Prime, I get things delivered when they say they will be delivered and that is often the next day or at most in 2 days.

 

[pete6032]

Maybe as much as anything it's the fact that I don't know an accountant. I have always done my own taxes and bought Intuit Software's assurances that TT is getting me the best result possible, quite possibly fully naive.

Similarly, I've never called a plumber (just fixed my kitchen sink's plumbing), an electrician, a painter, a carpenter... the list goes on. Now they say a person who represents himself in court has a fool for a client, and I'm sure there's a lot to that. I had good enough grades and a score on the LSAT to get me into law school but the prospect made me shudder.

I plan to call Ebay, my post office and Turbo Tax tomorrow. I hope I can get a live person in each instance. I'd like to ask Turbo Tax which software I need and if Deluxe will do what I need. It seems ridiculous that I need to spend $20 more just to get my loss carryover.

I know you're not looking to switch this year but I did TurboTax all the time and two years ago switched to Credit Karma Tax, which is free, and has been great.

 

[Exterous]

Don't know for sure, but the Premier TT is always explained to include support for investments, while Deluxe is not. I am unaware of Deluxe being able to pass along investment loss carryover. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My situation is pretty simple. Unemployed, have savings accounts (i.e. interest), investment accounts with a brokerage that were dormant last year (no activity), social security income, investment loss carryover from years past. What Turbotax do I need?

Ive always used turbotax deluxe for investment and business income and losses. They dont say they do it and always prompt to upgrade but the download works fine (online does not). It even connects to my brokerage and imports all the various 1099 forms. Ive never done carryover losses between years with it but if its schedule D it should work since the download version of Deluxe includes that form.

 

[Muse]

Ive always used turbotax deluxe for investment and business income and losses. They dont say they do it and always prompt to upgrade but the download works fine (online does not). It even connects to my brokerage and imports all the various 1099 forms. Ive never done carryover losses between years with it but if its schedule D it should work since the download version of Deluxe includes that form.

I'm going to try to get a live TT support person on the phone and put the question to them directly: Will TT Deluxe support my carryover losses? It's the one reason I'm paying the extra bucks for Premier for the last couple years at least.

Well, I have the USPS delivery, finally. It was never delivered. I think this happened because it was sent by Intuit. I bought TT Premier in the past off Ebay and this happened then too, once -- It's bought by the seller and I am designated as the send-to addressee. Problem (at least this time) is that it's not super plain on the cardboard envelope ... the addressee. In the place where the address normally appears it has a bar code. If you look above that it has my name and address, although the sender misspelled my name, oddly enough. I think the mailman looked at it and didn't know what to do with it and just brought it back to the post office. It was given to the mailman the next day (Wednesday) and that was a substitute who is evidently new and didn't know what to do with it. It was again brought back to the PO. Now, I tried to sort all this out talking to ESL people, and that often drives me up the wall because they are just not good at explaining nuances of how things work/happen in English. All the workers at the PO, even the mail carrier who I encountered on the street are ESL.

Before I determined that the local PO actually had it I actually spent well over an hour on the phone waiting to talk to a USPS agent (it said wait time would be 40-50 minutes), and was dropped to a dial tone after an hour the 2nd time, the first time after 20 minutes. I gave up on getting someone on the phone and bicycled the 2 miles to the PO where they couldn't find it. They promised to talk to the carrier and call me later. They call me, I get a weird story and a little later they call me back and say they have it at the PO after all and I can come get it or they will deliver next day. I immediately drive over there and get it, then do some other errands that required my car. One crazy day yesterday, I won't even get into the other stories from yesterday ...

 

[Charmonium]

I use Premier because of investments. It handles downloading all of the transaction data and does a pretty good job of it. Unfortunately some of the brokers aren't real good about reporting things like cost basis and acquisition dates so you still end up spending some time trying to sort things out. There's no way I could do my taxes w/o TT. I'm sure the result isn't perfect because I know that there are probably things that get reported that I don't include. But screw it. If I really f*** up I'm sure they'll let me know.

 

[Muse]

I use Premier because of investments. It handles downloading all of the transaction data and does a pretty good job of it. Unfortunately some of the brokers aren't real good about reporting things like cost basis and acquisition dates so you still end up spending some time trying to sort things out. There's no way I could do my taxes w/o TT. I'm sure the result isn't perfect because I know that there are probably things that get reported that I don't include. But screw it. If I really f*** up I'm sure they'll let me know.

I gotta say, doing my taxes with TT is way easier than before when I did it by hand without tax software. But I am pretty sure I could do it a lot cheaper or free if I stopped using TT, TT Premier especially. It's just those darn loss carryovers that's kept me addicted to TT Premier, but I want to find out if there's a better way. I figure to do my taxes by Monday. Hopefully, I have all the documents needed on hand or I'm going to have to scramble to get that info.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Well, I have the USPS delivery, finally. It was never delivered. I think this happened because it was sent by Intuit. I bought TT Premier in the past off Ebay and this happened then too ...

How much did you pay for all that suffering? Premier cost me $54.99 +tax for the digital download from Amazon and that only took a couple of minutes to receive.

 

[Muse]

How much did you pay for all that suffering? Premier cost me $54.99 +tax for the digital download from Amazon and that only took a couple of minutes to receive.

Wow. If I'd known I could do that I would have. Authorized, I suppose, right?

I at first paid $52 for the copy that turned out to not be new and sealed and look bludgeoned with a hammer and wouldn't install. I was refunded that. The copy I finally received cost me $49. It's the CD and looks 100% genuine and was sent by Intuit. I installed yesterday, let it update, but I haven't started my return. Been super busy with some other pressing concerns. Hope to do taxes in a few days, maybe Monday.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Wow. If I'd known I could do that I would have. Authorized, I suppose, right?

I at first paid $52 for the copy that turned out to not be new and sealed and look bludgeoned with a hammer and wouldn't install. I was refunded that. The copy I finally received cost me $49. It's the CD and looks 100% genuine and was sent by Intuit. I installed yesterday, let it update, but I haven't started my return. Been super busy with some other pressing concerns. Hope to do taxes in a few days, maybe Monday.

Yes, it's sold by Amazon through their digital software sales and downloaded from them. Intuit has several $10 off sales between October(?) and April for the Amazon downloads, I got mine on sale in December.

 

[brianmanahan]

buy turbotax CD, share it with up to 4 family/friends, each of you pay 1/5 the cost, and you get really cheap tax prep

 

[bruceb]

I bought TurboTax Premier also this year. I buy it on the CD and got it by mail from BJ's ... it was $72 including the delivery and tax to my front door. I do not like the digital download versions and buying it off Ebay is risky. It may not be genuine or not activate or maybe not download the State forms you need. The cd version does not need anything to activate it. Once it is installed, all is well.