Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles - If you are looking for top of the line tax software so that you can DIY your tax returns for the 2019/2020 year, you're probably considering TurboTax. We've all heard of turbo Tax. In this video, I am covering a review for the 2019/2020 software and what you need to know in terms of pricing to get your taxes done with TurboTax. (slow music) Hey guys, welcome back to The College Investor, Investing and Personal Finance for Millennials. We're talking about TurboTax today and we all know that this is a major player in the tax software industry and so I was wondering, what exactly are you getting with TurboTax and is it really free? You may be able to file your taxes for free with TurboTax under a very specific condition and that is if you are a W-2 income earner and if you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit or the child tax credit. So, if you have those one of those two things plus the W-2, you could file at your federal and your state return for $0. However, you can't take any other deductions. So, if you have things like paying on student loan interest or you have a health savings account, you wouldn't be able to qualify for that free plan, you'd have to upgrade to the deluxe or the premier plan. And let's go over those pricing packages on TurboTax's website. Okay so, TurboTax has a couple of different plans for you depending on your situation. So, I've covered the free edition but I think most people are probably going to align with the deluxe edition or the premier edition. So, deluxe is $40 and then you'll get to add some homeowner tax breaks, it looks like you can get some one-on-one help from a TurboTax specialist, all these different things. And then I like how it has a breakdown of okay, I could get tax deductions here, mortgage of property deductions and so on. You may even end up falling under the premier plan which is $70 in which you can auto import your investment info and tax data which is a big time-saver. I definitely appreciate being able to import forms rather than typing them in manually, it leaves less room for error. And if you are self-employed, then you'll be looking at the $90 self-employed plan. What I like about this one is it also includes one year of QuickBooks. In fact, if you are a QuickBooks user now, you can import your data directly in a TurboTax which saves time. However, if you are just getting started and you want to add QuickBooks to your business plan, you can get that if you've not been a QuickBooks user in the past. And it's true that TurboTax often has high prices. In fact, we've found that they are at the top of the market when we compared these to other software companies out there. So, you'll wanna do your due diligence. I wouldn't recommend the deluxe or the premier plans if price is a deciding factor for you. Also, a side note, TurboTax, it tends to adjust their prices throughout the tax season so you'll wanna lock in your rate early on. That's typically in December and January when the prices will be offered at its lowest. So, if you plan on doing deluxe, premier or self-employed, you'll wanna lock in those rates as soon as possible. Once you have aligned with the right plan for you, you can go ahead and jump into the tax software. Let me show you a complete walkthrough of what the TurboTax software looks like once you're inside. When you first get started with TurboTax, you'll need to obviously sign up. If you have been a previous QuickBooks user or a Mint user, you can use the same login information to log into TurboTax. I'll go ahead and use new information so you can see exactly what it looks like when you sign up for the first time. When you first log in, there'll be a screen to point you in the right direction. So, you can click on any of these little boxes and then it'll take you to the right step. So, I'm going to select that I have a job at W-2 and if I click on anything else, it's going to recommend the right package for me. So, when I clicked I'm self-employed then it's going to recommend the self-employed plan. So, for a simple W-2 return, it's going to stick us into the free edition. So, let's go ahead and click file for $0 then you'll consent to providing your information through the software and then it'll just prompt you through the different questions. I really like how simplified the dashboard is. There's not a whole lot of areas to click out of and I think the questions are really straightforward, I don't feel like this is confusing at all. This is cool. It says if you have a PDF copy of last year's return then you can upload it and start pulling info which is really nice. For the sake of this tutorial, I'll just go ahead and type my info. I really like this screen too. Let's get an idea of your financial picture. So, there's a lot of different things that could've occurred throughout the year so you're just going to click on the box that makes sense for you and then it'll walk you through the right forms to fill out. Then remember that the free edition only counts if you're a W-2 income earner or if you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit or the child tax credit. So, let's go ahead and keep going. Then you'll just input your personal information. I'll go ahead and just put in the dummy information for now. Then we'll get to the filing status which is single, in this example and click continue and then it'll give you a nice summary. I like how at the end of inputting my information that it'll give me a quick summary just to make sure everything was put in correctly. Then TurboTax is going to try to upsell you here. We're still in the free edition but it's also asking if we'd like to get advice and specialist support. I would go ahead and skip this for now, especially if you are finally in a simple tax return or you've had experience filing your taxes on your own before as well. So, you can see up at the top of the screen, the tax return is broken into different sections. So, you'll first start with wages and income, followed by deductions and credits and then other miscellaneous tax situations and then you'll do a review of your federal return before filing. Once you get done filing your W-2 information, it's going to show you your federal refund so far. This number can change as you input new information and TurboTax will give you the best estimate of what your potential refund or the potential amount that you'll owe. And then they'll go ahead and check for more information about your 2019 income by answering a couple of simple questions. The cool thing about this year is you can always click the learn more button and there's going to be a pop-up window that explains why they're asking this information and then sometimes what forms that you would need in order to fill out everything correctly. So, that's really nice. So far, everything within the TurboTax software is really easy and simple to use. I like that everything is broken down into layman's terms. I don't feel that I am confused by anything so far and the questions that are asked throughout the process, it seems very guided so I don't have to go looking for things. All right, now we're gonna jump into the second section which is the deductions and credits. Then once you get to the part where you need to pick either standard or itemized,