TurboTax Online Review – Part 1 – Intro

This is part one of an in-depth review of Intuit’s TurboTax Online Tax Software. I have never used Intuit’s online version before and am curious to see how it compares vs. their desktop based tax software packages.

Let’s get started.

The first screen you see when you start your tax return is shown in the below screenshot.

TurboTax uses this neat graphic to illustrate where you are in the tax return process. Each time you complete a specific segment of the process the graphic is updated to reflect your progress. Like most Canadian tax software packages, TurboTax online breaks your tax return down into the segments of personal information, income, deductions, credits, final review and filing.

Refund Tracker 

One of the biggest questions I always have when preparing my tax return is how much of a refund am I getting? TurboTax online provides a “instant refund ticker” which is visible on the right side of the screen throughout the entire tax return preparation process. This is handy to understand how much your tax refund changes after you complete each section of your tax return.

Have Tax Questions?

One of the useful features that comes with TurboTax online is Live Community. Live Community is essentially a forum that contains questions and answers related to common income tax questions. If you have a question about your tax return you can easily search Live Community to see if another TurboTax user has posted the same question and received an answer from other users in the community. If your question doesn’t exist in Live Community you can always post your question and hope that another user provides a timely answer to your question.

Professional Tax Advice

If you can’t find answers to your burning tax questions through Live Community, TurboTax also provides phone and email access to tax professionals who can directly answer your tax questions. The best part is this tax advice is completely free. Definitely one of the biggest benefits that TurboTax provides and certainly a huge differentiator vs. other Canadian tax software packages.

In the 2nd part of this review I will take a look at how to complete your personal tax profile with TurboTax Online.