turbotax for business - free download

[joanmcq]

Y'know, regarding the comment about auditing returns that say 'self-prepared'. I've read that Canada has found so many problems with DIY returns, they are doing just that...up to 25% of DIY....

[S T]

DIY Returns

If IRS would audit all of the self prepared returns, it would keep them plenty busy, possibly create some additional work for Tax Professionals for audit representation, notice answering or amended returns, like those of us on the Board, and then maybe some of (our clients) us would not receive so many erroneous notices that we have to spend time answering.

A thought, just auditing the DIY should help to reduce the deficit!

Sandy

[Black Bart]

A couple of nice bright spots to think about

Erchess, stop and think about your belief that if we boycotted these DIY software companies, they would stop catering to the DIY taxpayers.

As a profession, we are maybe 150,000 tax preparers (don't know how close this estimate is). Reduce that by half for preparers who work on a network (maybe more than half). That is 75,000 and a high-end $1500 product. This means our total market is some $112 million, and we can argue all of the parameters in the calculation if we wish.

I remember a couple years ago when TurboTax announced their product exceeded the 20 million returns level. Assuming they have made zero growth since then, and an average product sale of $40, this puts their gross sales at $800 million. They are serving a market seven times our size, and that would be only TurboTax and not include TaxCut or any of the others. Although TT probably captures over 90% of this market.

These companies are not going to walk away 85% of their software market because the other 15% refuse to buy from them. Of course, that assumes my above calculation assumptions are correct, but even if they are not, could they be that far off?

As I've stated before, we will not prevail by trying to force Intuit and others to shrink their profit. Forget it. I do think there is a possibility that NATP or NAEA, (or some entity dedicated to the tax professional) could develop a software version if they choose to allocate enough resources to do so. They could offer it free with their membership, and raise their membership fee by about $300. Practitioners in the software market would jump at this..

I agree with the frog -- there's not enough of us to sway vendors (many high-end work practitioners probably counted in surveys aren't interested in DIY clients). Still, lots of us would go for a pro group-developed program offering various formats at a reduced price w/membership. If 3/4 of us left present vendors, we would probably get Intuit's attention. I wonder if it's ever been brought up? I've never heard it mentioned at any seminars.

If IRS would audit all of the self prepared returns, it would keep them plenty busy, possibly create some additional work for Tax Professionals for audit representation, notice answering or amended returns, like those of us on the Board, and then maybe some of (our clients) us would not receive so many erroneous notices that we have to spend time answering. A thought, just auditing the DIY should help to reduce the deficit! Sandy

I'd love to see this. Jiggers mentioned that we pick up quite a bit of TurboTax correction work, but, as somebody here once said, it's nothing compared to the enormous numbers of small-stuff, short-form, expense-paying, easy/gravy returns we've lost to them. If a sharp IRS bureaucrat realized how many DIY returns were wrong, they might get interested.

[erchess]

Interesting Idea

Suppose that the IRS began to keep track of how often it finds major money when it audits self prepared returns vs how often it finds major money when it audits returns prepared by each paid preparer. After a year or two the Service could begin to factor preparer ID into its audit decisions. The only hitch I can see is that in evaluating our work the IRS would need to determine whether we had been lied to or whether we put what we did on the return without due diligence or fraudulently or simply in error about the relevant law. The problem is that making that kind of determination would drive a wedge at audit between our interests and those of our clients.

[taxxcpa]

So simple

Click on the link provided by Zee and scroll down to where the narrative begins. The very first sentence says it all:

"With TurboTax Business, you don't need to know a thing about business taxes."

No further comments.

With Turbo tax it's so simple a cave man could do it. Every cave should now come equiped with Turbo Tax.