Thanks, Bob, for an excellent answer.

Nan, EA in LA

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Frank S. Duke, Jr. <dukefs[at]one.net> wrote:

- quote -

It doesn't make it the "law," but it likely does make it a
fait accompli. <g
MTW

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- quote -

Given the low percentage of returns that get audited, they
do. If the coders at Intuit make a mistake and millions of
taxpayers short the government or the taxpayer $10, doesn't
that become the law? Sure they will correct the error if it
is caught but how many of the people who already filed will
amend for $10

All freely provided advice guarantee correct or double your
money back

Frank S. Duke, Jr. CPA
Cincinnati, OH USA

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MTW wrote:
- quote -

Sometimes I wonder if the programmers at Intuit know how to
develop a program designed for volume tax service. I would
love to see a columnar w-2 1099r itemization and summary
from Proseries. Not separate pages for each one.

--
Frederick E. Jorden http://Tax-Accounting-Payroll.com
7825 Midlothian Tpk - 207 Richmond, VA 23235-5247
EMAIL knowtax[at]bigfoot.com
(804) 320-6210 FAX (804) 320-6211

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"MTW" <mtwingcpa[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

So you think they're sending their tax questions to Intuit,
and the TurboTax questions here?

--
Barry Margolin, barmar[at]alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA

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- quote -

TurboTax is by far the most widely used consumer tax
software, so it would naturally be involved in a high
percentage of the questions from non-professionals.

- quote -

I can think of at least three reasons why people would
prefer to ask their questions in the newsgroup, rather than
going to TurboTax support. (This is just my opinion.)

First, the TurboTax support organization seems to try to
maintain a sharp distinction between technical support and
tax advice. There are separate staffs, with different
contact channels, for the two types of inquiries. If your
problem is a blend of both tax issues and software usage, as
is often the case, you will probably get better answers from
this newsgroup.

Second, because of the nature of a newsgroup, the answers
will tend to be of higher quality. When you contact support,
you get hooked up with one particular support rep before
they even know what your question is. Obviously the level of
expertise in various areas is going to vary from one rep to
another. So you may get one who is weak in the particular
area you have trouble with. In any event, at best you get
only one person's response. In the newsgroup, lots of people
read your question. Those who choose to answer likely have
some particular knowledge about the specific issue. Others
who don't know much about it aren't under any pressure to
try to give you an answer. You can get multiple responses,
which may contribute different viewpoints or experiences.
And the responses are then read by other people in the
group, who can offer corrections, refinements, or differing
opinions. So in effect you get peer-reviewed answers from a
group of experts.

Finally, the people who respond to questions in the
newsgroup aren't rated on the basis of how quickly they can
give you an answer and go on to the next inquiry.

Bob Sandler

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Nan Eklund <naneklund[at]aol.com> wrote:

- quote -

In my humble opinion, there are many people out there who
believe that the programmers at Intuit (rather than
Congress) write the Internal Revenue Code. In other words,
they confuse the "code" of computers with the "code" of law.

MTW

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- quote -

Probably for the same reason that computer support people
get so many questions about Windows. I assume that Turbo Tax
is the dominant retail tax product, with TaxCut second and
maybe TaxAct a distant third. Anyone got any hard data?

--
Don EA in Upstate NY

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naneklund[at]aol.com (Nan Eklund) wrote:

- quote -

I think people in general find it more comfortable to ask
questions in peer groups than sending to customer support
organizations. People get bad experiences from some
customer support groups, and generalize to them all.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar[at]alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

I was just wondering why we got so many questions about
TurboTax? Do they not support their customers?

We dropped them 5 or 6 years ago because of support problems
and are very happy with Tax Works but a huge percentage of
the questions this year have been TT related. Just
curious.......

Nan, EA in LA

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