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TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

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Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#31

Post by pnutjam »

EsotericAlgo wrote: post #16
codehusker wrote: post #5

This might not apply to many who frequent HN, but not enough people know about Free File options. If your adjusted gross income is less than $66,000 you can likely file your federal and potentially state taxes for free. If you make more than $66,00 AGI, the IRS provides fillable forms that are pretty easy to use for your federal but might not be applicable in all circumstances. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do…

Many states also offer an online filing option. For example, California has CalFile[1] which covers most situations. There are also some options for free federal filing if your AGI exceeds $66,000 as the requirements set by Free File Alliance[2] members vary depending on the offerings (e.g. FreeTaxUSA[3] doesn't have AGI limits). [1] https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/CalFile/index.asp [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr…

I've been using DIY tax, http://www.freetax.com

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#32

Post by scarface74 »

Retric wrote: post #29
maxerickson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much guaranteed that fewer people will itemize this year.

You generally need to do the itemized calculations to see which one saves you more money. Thus, the result is kind of meaningless as you do the same work either way. The only way to simplify taxes is to actually remove deductions.

There are really only a few things most people deduct - state taxes, property taxes, charity and mortgage interest. You have to enter your state taxes anyway. It's not that hard to enter the other three and see if you are below the standard deduction.

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#33

Post by ebikelaw »

codehusker wrote: post #5

This might not apply to many who frequent HN, but not enough people know about Free File options. If your adjusted gross income is less than $66,000 you can likely file your federal and potentially state taxes for free. If you make more than $66,00 AGI, the IRS provides fillable forms that are pretty easy to use for your federal but might not be applicable in all circumstances. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do…

How are you meant to reckon your AGI without in essence “doing your taxes”?

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#34

Post by shkkmo »

Hello71 wrote: post #20
djcapelis wrote: post #3

I stopped using TurboTax some years ago and switched to TaxAct as a less bad alternative. I didn’t believe them to be necessarily tons better than giving money to TurboTax, but I figured at least it wouldn’t just keep solidifying a market leader who was capturing a significant market based mostly around actively lobbying to keep it that way. In the last two years I took a leap to CreditKarma’s tax offering. It is a b…

too bad they sell your tax information, in all likelihood to companies like Equifax. now they don't have to ask your employers your salary anymore, you can just tell them.

Do you have evidence or justification for this claim?

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#35

Post by rdl »

geomark wrote: post #30
rdl wrote: post #18

I'm selfishly happy that tax year 2017 is the last year I'll probably be filing a personal US tax return (at least a substantial one) for a long time. Maybe in 2036 they will have solved this.

Did you renounce US citizenship? I think that's the only way to remove the requirement to file a US tax return.

No. There are lots of other ways. (Renouncing is bad for many reasons; I'm patriotic, although the US has a lot of problems, and there's essentially a 10y tax on unrealized gains at exit, plus lifetime visa problems.)

1) Make 2) Move to a place which under Section 933 of the IRC can make its own tax laws for bona fide residents. I'm doing Act 22 (and Act 20 for business, and some other things) and taking advantage of the opportunities in the Isle of Enchantment, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. There are some similar opportunities for US citizens in the other US territories, but PR is the best one I think, and is certainly the biggest and most developed.

Essentially, until 2035, you pay 0% short term, long term capital gains or dividends. Under Act 20, businesses pay 0-5% on exported services revenue (i.e. anything sold outside PR: SaaS, consulting, etc.). It's pretty nice. Infrastructure is an issue (although gigabit internet is $60/mo), and some costs are higher, but overall it's a good deal. It's hugely popular with cryptocurrency people after crypto to crypto trades started getting taxed fully as st cg.

(Actually I have to file 2018 too, although it will be for <$100, since I think I have some US bank accounts which earn interest.)

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#36

Post by shkkmo »

codehusker wrote: post #5

This might not apply to many who frequent HN, but not enough people know about Free File options. If your adjusted gross income is less than $66,000 you can likely file your federal and potentially state taxes for free. If you make more than $66,00 AGI, the IRS provides fillable forms that are pretty easy to use for your federal but might not be applicable in all circumstances. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do…

I used their system to submit my taxes this year. (Edit: the "free fillable forms" system)

Their UX is absolutely atrocious. It will do the math for you, but there are a number of intermediate fields that require you to enter a value manually, but have no indication in the form of what they are. You have to go through their instructions (separate from the IRS instructions) for the form to figure out what fields require manual entry.

Eventually I was able to work my way through the form with research and experimentation.

The only thing I wasn't able to figure out was how to get it to include the penalty for failing to pay estimated taxes. I added the form to my filing and filled it out, but I could never get the number of populate into the 1040 and their form wouldn't let me enter that value manually. While I would have preferred to pay it all at once, my only option was to wait for the IRS to calculate this and bill me for it.

Can we please, please, please get 18F to rebuild this so it doesn't completely suck? Offering a solid, free alternative to Turbo Tax and other abusive companies would be so beneficial.

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#37

Post by faitswulff »

Hello71 wrote: post #20
djcapelis wrote: post #3

I stopped using TurboTax some years ago and switched to TaxAct as a less bad alternative. I didn’t believe them to be necessarily tons better than giving money to TurboTax, but I figured at least it wouldn’t just keep solidifying a market leader who was capturing a significant market based mostly around actively lobbying to keep it that way. In the last two years I took a leap to CreditKarma’s tax offering. It is a b…

too bad they sell your tax information, in all likelihood to companies like Equifax. now they don't have to ask your employers your salary anymore, you can just tell them.

I was worried about this when I started using CreditKarma, too. Seven years of AMAs convinced me that unless the founder was a pathological liar playing a really long game, they probably didn't sell my information:

"Do you spam member or sell your list? No, we send less than one email per month. We never sell, share, or rent any consumer PII with third parties." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/c28od/i_started_credi...

"We make money by selling advertising on the site. We never sell or share member information" https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/e0cfl/iama_entreprene...

"Also let me point out that we don't make money by selling your information. It is against our privacy policy and we hate those tactics as much as you do." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2qq95l/i_am_the_found...

"Definitely not. We hate that model too. We do just fine by showing you offers that we believe will save you money. We think that is a win win. As a test, I always suggest people create a unique email account just for us. See if you get any spam in that account. All bets are off if you use a crappy email provider ;)" https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3zh78n/im_ken_lin_fou...

"We are using Google business model. We don't sell or rent the information to anyone and we use it to help find the most useful loan or credit card for you. That simple." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5ha7sg/im_kenneth_lin...

"We also don't sell or share your information unless you give us explicit consent. In those cases, we are generally pre-filling a form or determining if you qualify for an offer." https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/69ad...

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#38

Post by enraged_camel »

cortesoft wrote: post #26

I do hate that they lobby for keeping taxes hard to file, but I have no issue paying them $60 to do my taxes. The website is such a great user experience, and they earned that money in my estimation. Why should it be free? They clearly put a lot of work into their site. My only other issue with them is that they keep emailing me telling me to get started with my filing, but I already completed my tax return weeks ago…

It’s not that TurboTax should be free. Obviously no one is arguing that.

The argument is that the tax code shouldn’t be so complicated that you need to pay a fee to file your taxes smoothly and with little risk of getting it wrong (and getting audited/fined).

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#39

Post by enraged_camel »

rdl wrote: post #35
geomark wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you renounce US citizenship? I think that's the only way to remove the requirement to file a US tax return.

No. There are lots of other ways. (Renouncing is bad for many reasons; I'm patriotic, although the US has a lot of problems, and there's essentially a 10y tax on unrealized gains at exit, plus lifetime visa problems.) 1) Make 2) Move to a place which under Section 933 of the IRC can make its own tax laws for bona fide residents. I'm doing Act 22 (and Act 20 for business, and some other things) and taking advantage of…

>>There are some similar opportunities for US citizens in the other US territories, but PR is the best one I think, and is certainly the biggest and most developed.

Maybe it was, but Hurricane Maria fucked it hard and it is unlikely to recover anytime soon. Just the other day a tree fell on a repaired power line and 640,000 people in San Juan (the capital!) lost power. That’s just crazy to me.

Re: TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown

#40

Post by faitswulff »

djcapelis wrote: post #3

I stopped using TurboTax some years ago and switched to TaxAct as a less bad alternative. I didn’t believe them to be necessarily tons better than giving money to TurboTax, but I figured at least it wouldn’t just keep solidifying a market leader who was capturing a significant market based mostly around actively lobbying to keep it that way. In the last two years I took a leap to CreditKarma’s tax offering. It is a b…

CreditKarma did a pretty good job with my taxes this year, they just didn't handle premium tax credits very well. I had to get help filling out a form 8962, which strangely enough was full of (the equivalent of) null pointer exceptions. Not CreditKarma's fault, but hoo boy was that a nightmare of a form + instructions + worksheet (each with appendices).

I'm looking forward to them handling all these edge cases, too, so I can fully recommend them to my friends next year.

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