(ethereal music)
- Hey guys, it's Robert from The College Investor,
and today we are going to dive into
TurboTax 2018/2019,
and I'm gonna break down why I love TurboTax
and why I think
it is one of the easiest-to-use pieces of tax software
that is out there right now.
However, the big drawback with TurboTax
is always the pricing,
so you do pay a premium to use TurboTax,
and I wanna show you if it's worth it or not,
and who should be considering TurboTax.
Now, they do have their free option again in 2018/2019,
but as always they limit their free option,
which is one of the big reasons
why we don't recommend TurboTax for free filers this year.
We actually recommend H&R Block because they have
the most robust free file option available,
that's still extremely easy to use.
That's not to say
that TurboTax isn't the best tax software for everybody.
There is definitely some people
who will find a lot of value in TurboTax this year,
and I wanna dive in
and show you exactly what you're gonna get
when you use TurboTax 2018/2019.
So, let's dive into the review,
and I'm gonna share my screen with you right now
and show you exactly what you're gonna get this year.
All right guys, so when we dive into TurboTax this year,
this is what we come to on the home page.
TurboTax is advertising free guaranteed
$0 Fed, $0 state, $0 to file.
Easily and accurately file your simple tax returns for free,
and that's the kicker is that simple tax return.
So, let's see what actually is free.
So, TurboTax is free
if you have only the following situations:
W-2 income,
limited interest/dividend reported on 1099,
claim the standard deduction, Earned Income Tax Credit,
and Child Tax credits.
This is where TurboTax is not free,
not covered in free edition,
is itemized deductions, business income,
which also includes side hustle income, guys,
stock sales, rental property,
and credits, deductions, and income
reported on Schedules one to six,
which includes the Student Loan Interest deduction,
and that's the bummer there, guys,
because TurboTax has a great, easy-to-use product,
but they just don't make it free for enough people
compared to other tax filing options,
and if you find yourself having to use the Deluxe version,
which is their cheapest paid version,
you're paying a lot more than you'd find on other platforms
like H&R Block or TaxSlayer,
and those are cheaper,
and they have a really good interface, too.
It's not as good as TurboTax, but it's pretty darn close,
and if you're paying half the price it's probably worth it.
So, let's dive in
and see what TurboTax looks like this year.
When you log in, I've actually already input my return,
and due to some technical difficulties
you missed my first go-around,
but I'm gonna do the best I can
to show you exactly what TurboTax looks like this year.
So, when I go to my return, you can,
let's start at My Info here,
you could see how easy it is
to enter all of your personal information.
You could see this year I'm going with a Home Alone theme,
and I'm going with Kevin McAllaster,
the boy from Home Alone.
Guys, everything on here is fake.
I appreciate the concern.
I get a couple comments every year that,
oh my god, I could see your social,
and your address, and all this stuff,
and it's all fake, guys.
I don't even know what 555 San Diego Avenue is,
but it's a cool address if you have that address,
and then Rick James is definitely not my son,
even though he's hilarious,
but here you go: you can enter all your info, your name,
your birthday, your social security, your occupation,
what state you lived in,
and then a few other random questions here at the bottom.
You enter your filing status: single, married, divorced,
registered domestic partnership, legally separated, widowed.
Your dependents.
Did you make any money in other states?
No, I didn't.
Did you pay for more than half the cost to keep your home?
Yes, I did.
And then you have your address
and you're ready to rock and roll here.
The one thing you're also gonna notice throughout TurboTax
is these upsells.
They're always trying to get you to upsell
to one of their other products.
You don't need most of these.
You could break it down on the blog.
You can see what's useful for you or not.
Then it comes here to your income.
Let's add some W-2 income.
Here's my job.
I work at San Diego Company right here in San Diego.
Your employer identification number, your company name,
your company address, your income, your everything.
This is all on your W-2.
Should only take you a couple minutes to enter.
The other cool thing is that you can also input this,
you can import this
or you could take a picture on your smartphone
and rock and roll.
Some uncommon situations with your W-2 here.
None of those apply.
So, we're done with W-2s.
Let's add a...
How can we help you add income?
Let's Guide me.
Do you have another W-2 to enter?
No, I don't.
Do you have self-employment income?
No.
Did you receive unemployment benefits?
No.
Did you get a 1099-G that wasn't for work?
No.
Did you make money on interest?
Yes, I did.
All right, interest income.
Let's say I got a little interest in my bank account.
So yes, I did get some interest income.
You can connect it right here
if you have any of these companies,
but I'm just gonna enter it myself.
I'm gonna receive it from USAA bank,
and I made $121.11.
Cool.
All right, and then none of these apply.
Do you have any interest income
from another bank or brokerage?
No, so there you go.
Got my interest income.
Did you receive any dividend income?
No, I did not.
Boom, and so there's all my income for the year, guys.
Did you sell any stocks?
No, I did not.
Did you have retirement income, rental property income,
other business income, partnership income,
cancellation of debt, and that's it.
So, there all my income's done,
but you could see all the different options here.
They make it so easy to go and navigate through everything.
Another kind of upsell.
Did you know that we have live CPAs
that could help you with your taxes?
And then they're gonna try to upsell you to that,
and then no, I don't want that.
I'm gonna skip it for now,
but as they said, always in the top-right corner here
you could get the live tax advice.
So, now for the fun part, your tax breaks.
So, we're gonna have
our Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit,
Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit,
car registration fees, income taxes paid.
That's all pretty easy.
The standard deduction is what's right for you.
It's gonna be right for most tax filers this year
with the tax law changes.
Health coverage, we all had health coverage this year.
Even though there's no penalty this year,
you still have to report it,
so it's kind of interesting
that there's still technically a penalty.
The penalty just happens to be set to $0 for 2018.
Yeah, and then you can dive right into your state.
You choose your state of residence.
You continue.
It imports all your information over,
but none of these tax forms are quite ready yet.
They're not gonna be ready till January, but that's okay.
Even though we want to be an early filer,
it doesn't pay to file before you have all your tax forms,
otherwise you might have to amend your tax return.
So, well done.
All of our info is saved in here, and now we are all done,
and we can wait to file early if we wanted to.
So, hopefully you could see here
that TurboTax is super-easy to use.
I really like it.
If you've never filed your taxes before,
it's one of the easiest ways to file,
but it also is expensive
if you don't qualify for free tax filing,
so if you qualify for free tax filing,
I strongly recommend
that you take advantage of H&R Block
or TaxSlayer this year.
They both have excellent pieces of software.
H&R Block has the most robust free tax filing,
so it has the most options,
and then TaxSlayer has some of the best pricing
for every single form available.
It's only $17 for all the forms on their Classic edition.
All right guys, well,
hopefully that answers your questions about TurboTax,
and yeah, let me know in the comments below.
You guys usually do a great job of this every year.
Do you like TurboTax?
Do you not like it?
If you've found any bugs or errors,
we'd love to know about them, guys.
All right, thank you very much,
and I'll talk to you next time.