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Sole proprietors with variable income should look elsewhere, and if you want Schedule C, you might get it cheaper.
I purchased TurboTax Home & Business 2012, 2013, and 2014. It doesn't really change much year to year. For those three years, I thought I needed to purchase the "& Business" version because I needed to file Schedule C, but last year there was a big to-do because apparently the cheaper versions actually had Schedule C until 2014, and then, well people started carping about needed to pay up for the upgrade, and they eventually got their Schedule C in the cheaper versions. So by all means wait it out and see if you can get Schedule C for less money than the & Business version costs. Don't waste the money like I apparently did if 2015 turns out like 2014. On to the review of features for sole proprietors. You might think that the "& Business" version of this software makes filing re-estimated quarterly taxes a cinch if you have variable income. It absolutely does not. It sucks. I ended up more or less using the IRS worksheet and screwing it all up because I counted FICA as income tax or something like that. If you have income that varies substantially quarter to quarter, this is NOT the software for you. It will provide one estimate for your 2016 income which is based on your 2015 income, divide it by four, and stick with it. If your income is stable, that might work. You might also think that the "& Business" version of this software handled the situation where the entire family was on an Obamacare plan, but the plan was a business deductible because neither spouse was covered by any other employer plan, but no, it sucked for that too. You might as well consult your CPA or do the research yourself for all the help TurboTax provides in that situation. Hopefully they've worked on that... but probably not. And finally, getting back to the "100% Accurate Calculations Guarantee" -- it's pretty much garbage. It guarantees that whatever numbers a monkey punches into the program will generate a 100% consistent 1040 with no arithmetic errors. Does it cover situations where their software is misleading in calculating totals from their scattershot questionnaires? Nope! Guess what burned me, single proprietors? Why, quarterly estimated taxes, of course! It will let you enter the "overpayment" from the previous year in both the estimated taxes section and the quarterly payments section, and report a total number for "Estimates and Other Taxes Paid" that does not include the prior year overpayment! In what world is an overpayment carried forward not "taxes paid?" So, because my "Taxes Paid" was looking low by the amount of one overpayment from the prior year, well, I added that overpayment to the 4/15 quarterly, and voila! the number TurboTax reported for "taxes paid" was exactly what my records said. But, alas, TurboTax was telling me that my "taxes paid" was $6794 while telling the IRS that it was $11588, and the IRS doesn't much like it when you fib about that sort of thing. Cost me $60 in penalties and interest. Intuit told me to suck it, and so, I'm happy to have them suck on this review. If you are a sole proprietor with variable quarterly income and you think TurboTax Home & Business will help you out, it absolutely will not. Look elsewhere. I wish I had a good recommendation but I've been MacGyvering things with TurboTax and G.Oogle CPA for three years and it finally burned me, with Intuit running from their worthless guarantee when it finally mattered. You shouldn't have to MacGyver your quarterly estimates when you're paying for this software. Don't stand for it. Do something else.
November 2015 · Software
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