I have used Turbotax to file my tax return both Federal and State since 2013 and been happy with it. This year is a new ball game mainly because of new identification requirements set up by the IRS.
I got all my tax information together, the 1099INT from the bank with the interest on it earned in 2022, the 1098 Form from our home mortgage company with the property tax and interest paid information, Form 1099 Composite from Stash where I had investments during the year, Form 1099 R for retirement money paid to me during the year, Form SSA-1099 for me and one for my wife for Social Security paid to us during the year, and contribution statements from the two Churches we attended during the year. In addition to this information, I prepared comprehensive financial statements for the casual used golf cart business I ran the last five months of 2021 requiring a Schedule C be filed.
I went through the whole process on Turbotax answering all the questions they had. Turbotax starts out by telling a person how long they think it will take for them to complete the return. The time estimate for me was 4 hours and 30 minutes. The program ran all the checks on both the Federal and State returns and found one question I needed to answer. Then Turbotax told me which version of their software I needed to use to complete this return and how much it cost, $112 for the Federal, and $49 for the State. It asks if you want to pay from your refund or by credit card. I chose to pay by credit card. Turbotax congratulated me and stated that I had completed the return in two hours and twenty minutes far ahead of the national average.
Then it asks do you want to file electronically or on paper by mail? I always have filed electronically. When I made this choice that is when all Hell broke lose.
They tell you for the 2022 return you must complete an identification process. The first step in the process is tell us what your adjusted gross income on your 2021 tax return was? I have a new computer and downloaded all my previous tax returns onto a memory bank. When I went to the memory bank and clicked on my last year’s return it ask me how do you want to open it file? Windows 11 does not have the right software to open it. I could not find anything program that would open that file. Turbotax says not to worry click on this IRS link that takes you to ID.me to verify who you are. So, that is what I did. ID.me asks you to get your smart phone and use the camera to take a photo of the back and the front of your driver’s license, but not to use your camera use the software link that comes up on the screen from the link ID.me texts you. That took a while and several retakes and adjustments, but I finally got the photos to ID.me. Then they say you are not through yet “You need to take selfie on your phone using the ID.me software that has an elongated oval in the center of the phone screen. I played with that for a while and it came up with multiple messsages, “You are not close enough lay your phone on a table bend over it look into the oval center your face”. All I saw was black lines that look like long hairs and it is an outline of my head. ID.me says, You are not close enough maybe if your nose was right on the screen.” I tried two or three times and it said they were not getting my photo. I decided this must be a scam or a joke. I Googled Id.me and apparently it is an arm of the IRS. There are lots of negative comments out there about this truly non-functional software. I AM JUST GOING TO SEND MY RETURN IN ON PAPER THIS YEAR
Well today is another day, I decided to follow through on the ID.me system and see if I could get to efile my return. It took about six tries and authorization numbers before ID.me accepted my photos taken on their system with my phone. Then came the “Selfie” phase where you need to put your face in the oval. It really is just showing a bunch of black lines where your face is looking into the phone. It came back with messages we cannot see your whole face get closer, and even said I was too close once. But after about eight tries it finally shifted to another screen so I guess they liked my Selfie. Then I had to set up a pen for the eFile for each of us, and a Credit Karma password for the tax return tracking and finally got to the “E-file” button for the Federal and then the Arizona. MY RETURNs ARE NOW IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS.