The other thing to watch out for: If you're used to using the disc or download with Federal + State bundled together, the online prices aren't structured the same way. If you want your state return done with TurboTax, make sure you look at all the fees before buying in.

Interesting. Did you buy both the same year and try both to realize the differences? Just curious. I have been using HR Block for years and have a keen awareness of the tax laws. Have never seen any issues with HR Block.

HR Block Basic has the same features as Turbo Tax Deluxe at half the price (or less). I have been pleased with it up to now. YMMV.

Hmmmm.. I may try that..

My dilemma is that my dad is a CPA and would do my taxes for free, but there are also miles involved here.......

I checked out H&R Block and you are correct for an EZ form, Turbo would be cheaper ($0). For my situation, H&R Block recommended Deluxe so this would save me $20 compared to Turbo. Whether their software is as effective as Turbo remains to be seen. I suppose that I could prepare my returns on both as one should only be charged when one files.

Right now, I don't think that $20 is enough to get me excited about switching but the 10% bonus for e-gift cards could entice me as I have about $3,100 coming back to me in Federal so an extra $310 in my Amazon account would be nice.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I couldn't find anything about hidden fees on the site.

I do fairly complicated tax returns including the foreign earned income exclusion, sales of investments, Schedule C, and other relatively complicated schedules using only H&R Block basic.

Is the price of the software cheaper than other ways to get miles assuming you really have no need for the software itself?

Do you happen to know which deductions/credits it missed? The reason that I ask is that, on a lark, I tried both programs this morning and the return as prepared by Turbo was a $386 higher refund vs. H&R ($270 Federal, $116 State). I haven't yet received my 1099 from my broker but I was able to guesstimate so both programs had the same numbers.

As another poster mentioned and despite what their website recommended, I was steered towards H&R's Basic package ($24.99). State returns were a wash so Turbo ended up being $30 more but this is made up by the higher refund.

If I knew the exact reason/s that it failed to get me the maximum refund guaranteed :rolleyes: I might be able to work around it but I'm not sure that I can trust the program unless it could be proven that Turbo was taking liberties with how their returns were prepared.

I don't recall as this was a few years ago, but my returns are fairly simple to process. I don't trade stocks and don't have a Schedule C business, so most of my tax prep time is spent tracking down and entering all of my Schedule A charitable donations.

My guess is that TaxCut may have missed a Schedule A deduction or Schedule E expense, i.e. failed to ask a question that would have captured the expense. They may have fixed the issue by now, but then again, your experience suggests otherwise.

I think it very unlikely that Turbo is "taking liberties" with preparing your return. Intuit is not going to risk throwing away a billion dollar business (well, aside from last year's stealth price increase ;)) by risking its reputation with its customers, much less the IRS. Far higher chance that an individual preparer would goose your returns, as demonstrated by several criminal cases every year...

I'm pretty sure that 10% bonus is for however much you put into an amazon gift card. So unless you're putting the entire $3100 in an amazon gift card, you won't get the full $310 bonus.

I appreciate the feedback. I was quite prepared to put everything into the card as I spent ~$5,900 last year on Amazon. There are no guarantees that I'll spend that for this year but I wouldn't get the 10% as originally thought since their program steered me toward the Basic package once I created an account and started a return. 5% isn't bad but the refund differences with Turbo have left a sour taste in my mouth. I might try again once I receive my 1099 from my broker and see if the actual numbers show as big a disparity. I've already wasted 3 hours on this so I should try and see it through to the end.

A side rant about H&R's guarantee: If one guarantees something, something should be offered to offset the balance and not merely refund the fees and allow use of that same program to amend a return.

does using addblock plus on chrome affect these portals usually?

My experience is that most inaccuracies in the tax software (either Turbo Tax or HR Block) is user error - not checking a box (or checking a box they shouldn't), not answering a question correctly, forgetting to enter a number somewhere, etc. I am sure there are exceptions, but that is my experience between my using tax software and seeing others using such software.

Turbo Tax's guarantee will pay the penalties and interest:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/25...ions-guarantee

It appears the guarantee is very similar to HR Block's:

http://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-fi...culations.html

I figured that it goes without saying that they would cover the penalties and such for omissions or other errors on their part. What I would like to see is their guarantee be more along the lines of "We have the best software so that you get the maximum allowable under the law and if you can prove us wrong, we'll refund that amount plus 10% for your troubles." That probably won't happen but it is the type of response that I like to see from someone with a guarantee.

Update after receiving my 1099 this morning:

The returns are still off in favor of TurboTax. My guesstimate regarding my 1099-B was pretty close as my refund is $87 less. One place I missed on my original trial was the input of interest income in the H&R software but I corrected that this morning and that closed the gap by $26.

At this point, maybe the software is the same and I screwed up by not forcing H&R to look at something else but I entered everything that I have into both programs before it made its respective calculations. I guess that I'll never know as I'm not curious enough to go through both programs 1 step at a time to see the difference/s.

Best of luck to others regardless of whichever program one decides to use!