What users complain about in TurboTax: File Your Tax Return

Don’t ever do full service

My 2024 taxes dude said he messed something up and I had to do something I never figured it out and he was super unhelpful. Your mistake is now my problem? 2025 taxes same story don’t recommend full service to anyone 13 years of experience my rear end if your so experienced do better.

Forces Tax Expert Plan and makes IMPOSSIBLE to remove

Last year I filed using the tax expert plan because I had specific taxes that I needed assistance on. This year I wanted to just use the basic option and I couldn’t change it through the app or through the mobile Internet version of TurboTax. I had to go to the desktop version of turboTax and completely restart my tax filing in order to switch to the basic version. It is ridiculous that I have to go through all of these hoops in order to switch back to the basic version, it’s extremely frustrating that I had to navigate through three separate versions of the application in order to avoid paying a premium just to file my taxes. I didn’t select the tax expert option and they didn’t provide me a clear way to switch back to the basic version. Make it easier TurboTax. This is ridiculous.

Unable to use this year due to weird tech glitch

After upgrading to having someone do my taxes, and then downgrading back to self serve, I landed on an error that wouldn’t allow me to move forward with my taxes. I tried calling every support number there is but it would only direct me to a tax specialist who were unable to help with account issues. It went on for weeks until I realized what am I doing lol, so I switched to HR block and it was fantastic start to finish. Really good customer service too. Kinda glad this silly glitch helped me see the light.

Deceptive user experience

Purposefully trying to make you share your data with third parties and purchase add-ons on accident through misleading user interface.

Don’t use

Irs delayed my return for over half a year, I cannot get through to either irs or turbo tax, save your time and money and go to real experts locally.

Please fix this - auto-home on tab switch

This is beyond frustrating. I am trying to secure my account and add Authentication (WHICH REQUIRES LEAVING THE APP) and every time you switch with your Authenticator or something it resets you back to the main settings home page. When you attempt to get back to where you were, now you are given a new code and the cycle repeats. It’s a mobile app, you should be able to easily do these things. Same happens when trying to change your email. You can’t because it requires leaving the app to get your confirmation code that was sent to the email. This is embarrassing.

Never used again don’t use

I lost my money my time I wait for my money for 4 months and I have to do the paperwork again with a tax agency and pay again 150$ is 300$ for make my taxes thanks turbo tax for make me waist my money

Not worth it

Turbo Tax USED to be a solid way to file your taxes to avoid the price gauge from other companies. However, now they want to charge $150 for a tax refund I completed myself, and had AI check over. I’m confused as to how I need to pay or take out of my refund $150 for something a 12 year old could input and click through. On top of that, you can only file around THEIR time, as their website and app are insanely slow, and won’t let you move on from a step. Just as the other companies and private contractors, turbo tax is a money hungry organization who will do any and everything they can to ring out your pockets before you get your refund.

Got Screwed by TurboTax

Watch out guys. I chose the FREE TurboTax. I used the standard 1040 return. Had only one W-2. I did however have the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Tax Credit but these were included so why am I being billed? It never came up telling me I was going to be billed. What a lie. A month later I get an email that tells me; For the online state DIY I owe $64 + For the deluxe I owe $79 for a total of $143. You cannot respond to the email. You can only call them so I called them. Went round and round with the AI that responds to their calls, until I finally got an agent. They will not reverse the charges. They said it continuously tells you through out the filing process that you’re going to be charged. It did not do that. I wouldn’t have entered my credit card information if I’ve known that. How stupid do you think I am? I’ve done taxes using software for years never been charged. Funny thing is they aren’t even my taxes I was doing my son a favor by doing his taxes. Even though it’s supposed to be free, it’s still requires you to enter in a payment method at the end or you cannot continue. Bad thing is I use my debit card in the filing process so I’m the one gonna be billed. I’m 66 years old and live on a disability check. I know one thing for sure I’ll never use the “FREE” TurboTax again. And I’m going to blast this all over social media. Here is what TurboTax’s standard reply is “Our system is designed to detect the complexity of your return based on the information provided. Free Edition filing is intended for simple 1040 returns only not including any schedules except Schedule 1-A, Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit and student loan interest.”

Scammed me

I’ve used TurboTax for years and for some reason this year after signing up, sending in my state, and federal taxes I got denied multiple times. So I decided to use another app and had 0 issues. Now, TurboTax is trying to charge me for filing my taxes that never went through. I’ve been trying to get a hold of somebody through customer service and it seems impossible. If you get denied for some bogus reason like I did after quadruple checking and even starting over twice, you’ll have to pay regardless of the lack in support pre or post tax filing

Misleading free e-file

After selecting the free versions and inputting all of my information before I could submit it there was a pop up saying I had to pay $70 for state and $70 for federal. Pretty scummy to wait until someone is almost finished to suddenly require money.

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE

After months I still haven’t received my “accepted, and issued” state refund. Customer service is just ai and bots with preset questions and answers, called issuing company and they said it has to be the company holding it or having it stuck processing with turbo tax or Credit Karma because it was issued to the correct account already. And yes I checked the irs find my refund website as the bots suggested numerous times and it says issued.

Terrible help after service

I did the payment plan option to make monthly payments for what I owed and it has been a nightmare ive talked to probably over 50 different people in the last 3 months and the bank and nobody can answer what the issue is thay say it good but the payment does not go through and if you schedule a call for help and don’t answer with in 5 seconds there are suddenly no longer available they say there take the problem to higher up then you only get a rejected payment and a notice that it needs to be paid I would if i could but unfortunately they don’t feel the need to actually do there jobs or care for any issue that isn’t a single push of a button fix i highly doubt not recommend this company especially if there not going to finish the service you paid them to do

Gotnothingoutifthedeal

So I have used turbo tax before and I am noticing a pattern that I don’t like. Turbo tax each time says I am due a refund but I never receive one for various reasons. Turbo tax gets there money 212 dollars and I get nothing. By the way turbo tax uses an ACH withdrawal from my bank account in the middle of the night to make sure they get paid while I get nothing seems unfair. Each time a review is written regardless of the company if it is bad the company says this “you don’t have to use our service or product “ because they don’t care about you just want your money

Low refund

How can someone with 40k a year only get a couple hundred back. Please explain this to me in great detail cause it doesn’t make sense.

Scam

I chose the free version but turbo tax picked the TurboTax Online Do It Yourself Premium 2025 which is an extra $139. Won’t let me switch because they claim I already paid but I haven’t even filed yet. Wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

Garbage

I would like to personally thank the person who is responsible for the thousands of spam calls Ive gotten as result of my information being sold, apparently the deceptive “free file” didnt bring in enough revenue.. so thankful i can trust you with my SSN and income info, just not my phone number

Not happy at all

I usually file with these guys every year. And every year there is an option to file free ad they advertise on tv. Well, this past year when I filed, I get an email saying that my bank will be charged $119.00 for a deluxe option that I never wanted and never selected. I’m moving on from these thieves. They are no better than the IRS. I learned my lesson. I just wanted let everyone here know it’s not free!! One star from me.

Scammy

Don’t waste your time there’s better free tax filing programs and their ‘experts’ are scammers. I’d give no stars if I could. They charged me for a tax expert for a tax year I didn’t need and when they couldn’t get the payment they auto drafted from my savings account and now I am short for my rent money!! LITERALLY GO ANYWHERE ELSE. I’ll never use this service again. And can’t even reach support to complain.

Longtime user no more

I’ve used TurboTax for years and appreciate the convenience of it having my tax history, BUT I WILL NOT BE USING IT AGAIN. This past year, I used the tax expert to do my taxes and encountered so many problems with the expert, the software, and the website that it cost me time and money. I’ve given detailed feedback to TurboTax and they don’t care and don’t take ownership of the problems. I even applied for a refund of the purchase of the software and received a negative response saying once payment has been received, I’m not eligible for a refund EVEN IF THE RETURN IS REJECTED BY THE AGENCY! I will not be using TurboTax again and DO NOT RECOMMEND IT!

Horrible Service

I purchased a full service plan, it was passed around five different advisors as they continue to drop with no explanation a restart every time. They have no customer service representation, only tax advisors can speak to you. They are authorized to do nothing for you for all the service problems. They hide behind their terms and conditions and put all the work on you- the customer - should you have a complaint, which three out of five years I have. I’m finished with TT and recommend you dont get hooked. It’s garbage.

Not so expert

My tax refund was messed up even though I paid filing with expert review. Two or three different “experts” tried helping but now I end up needing to protest for my tax return. I previously didn’t need to do an identification validation quiz but I was prompted to do it, but it was too late and my tax return was adjusted to zero which now requires the protest.

Gone down hill

At this point, I would rather take my time out of my day to go to a bank to go have a bank teller do my taxes for me for free by the way, not like TurboTax says it’s gonna be free but then takes $80 out for using the app and then it took $40 out of my return For ALSO using the app so I don’t even understand what happened but they took $120 out of my tax return for no reason and I did my taxes ALL BY MYSELF on the app NO HELP this will be the last year I use this app. truly a scam and it doesn’t make it easier it makes things harder ID LIKE MY MONEY BACK TURBO TAX

Disappointment

App is a massive drain on both battery and compute resources, to the point that I had to delete it because my phone was experiencing massive lag just by having it installed. Also made filing taxes way more difficult. Filed last year using Direct File from the government, and it was easy, straight forward and probably the most pleasant experience I’ve had filing taxes. Used turbo tax this year and they somehow managed to screw up making sure my payment got through to the IRS, and so I had to deal with the headache of that. There’s a reason they had to lobby the current admin to kill Direct File—because nobody would use their product if they didn’t have to. Will likely choose a different tax filing software when I file next year.

No service

Filed taxes and everything went through and said it was good. Even gave us the refund amount. After not receiving our refund we could not access our account or speak to a real person. Only useless AI. Now our money is locked up with no way to see or correct the error or speak to a real person. Keeps saying access denied after logging into our account. Worthless garbage

As a 1st timer preparing my own taxes, I thought I'd give Turbo tax a try. Unfortunately, I also had past returns to prepare. I didn't pay for any extra services other than downloading the prior years software. I should've done more research as I could've saved myself almost $300 using another legit site. All I had to pay was $17.99 there. I literally felt sick once I noticed as I already had to come up with the money to get ahead of things. At least I know for the future. Huge disappointment.

Bad Product, Worse Service

During review, the software consistently showed that I owed around $6.5k in federal taxes, with an underpayment penalty around $37. After filing — without changing anything — the final filed return showed a liability closer to $10k and a dramatically higher penalty. After escalation, TurboTax attributed part of the issue to a dependent care benefits entry. However, that explanation did not fully account for the discrepancy I experienced, and support repeatedly avoided directly answering my questions about why the review totals differed so materially from the final filed amounts. Also, the dependent care benefits entry itself appears to be wrong. My W-2 (which I uploaded directly into TurboTax) shows nothing in Box 10 for dependent care benefits, yet the return still reflected taxable dependent care benefits. Even worse, when attempting to amend the return, TurboTax’s amendment workflow would not clearly expose or allow removal of the underlying entry despite searching through the dependent care sections multiple times. At one point, support even instructed me to amend the return by adding childcare expenses that never existed. I also explicitly attempted to uncouple my Virginia return from the federal filing, but the state return was still transmitted and payment was initiated, resulting in NSF bank fees and a failed IRS debit. Most disappointing was the support process itself: repeated attempts to reframe software behavior and UX concerns as generic “calculation accuracy” issues, followed by closing the case without meaningfully addressing the core questions. To top it off, after all of this, Intuit’s response to a prior review was simply to direct me to contact them via Facebook or Instagram.

The App has glitches and would not delete some forms it created, despite me deselecting the form (8822). The AI help did not provide appropriate solutions and no way to download the data already entered. My time is valuable. TurboTax obviously doesn't think so. I am severely disappointed. I have used the product for many years before, but I am inclined to torch that bridge and use another product that is user friendly and doesn't need further beta testing.

Lied about payment

They’ll tell you you won’t have to pay to file and in the end I did have to pay $200. Called for help and was told there wasn’t anything they could do. Go to free tax USA they’re free!

Scamming fraudsters

None of the buttons work. EVERYTHING IS AN INCOMPETENT AI. There are no direct numbers to any individuals so when they fail to file your taxes you have to call 10 times and wait an hour on hold each time to talk to a human that tells you they can’t do anything. One month after taxes have been filed and mine were rejected and I still have yet to receive any communication from my “dedicated expert” for whom I paid over $500 to complete my taxes and the company has no other options besides a virtual chat with an AI that can’t do anything. Intuit has also spent over $45M on federal lobbying against tax simplification so they can delay becoming completely obsolete.

Scammers

I would not recommend this return service to anybody ever. This is the second year in a row they tried to force me to buy their premium edition. When avoided entirely and making it to the very end they would not let me proceed without purchasing the deluxe edition. I did so in order to file and get it over with. My total was stated to be $118 at which time they asked for my payment method. Once I entered my payment method it then asked me to confirm my amount of $118 which is already ridiculously high considering my taxes were already completed when forced to buy their deluxe edition so I never actually got any use out of it. After confirming the amount stated, it accepted my payment but when showing me my amount paid it showed $198 before tax. I then looked at my receipt which showed an additional $13 in taxes which brought my grand total to $211 which only showed up after the payment was already processed when I was only informed I’d be paying $118 and only consented to paying that amount. It showed nowhere at all that I’d be paying the outrageous amount of $211 before taking my payment in fact the breakdown of balances changed entirely between checkout and viewing my receipt. This is the second year in a row that they have overcharged me significantly for absolutely no reason whatsoever, but is the first time they’ve lied about what was going to be withdrawn from my account. It’s much cheaper to pay a tax representative than it is to use this scam of a website.

Terrible this year

Software kept looping. This year was the worst!

Expensive and useless

Made me pay $170 to do my taxes which I later found out it was only $80 through a tax professional. Then i got a notice from Wisconsin saying I owe $350 because they made me file Wisconsin AND Illinois taxes when those states have a reciprocal tax law. I had to file an appeal on my own after paying this useless company over double what i should have.

file with them if you hate money!!!

This was my last year filing with this money hungry service after three years with them. They forced me to upgrade plans this year and I didn’t get any real help. Instead i get -200 from my refund. Who knows where the hell the rest of my money is, I received partial of an amount this morning smaller than anything disclosed on the app. I hate this company it can go rot !!!!!

User be warned

Terrible app to file taxes with not too mention is not user friendly at all. The biggest kick to the teeth is the messaging system in place on this app, filed our taxes and would not let me select anything else. Being foolish on my part saw the front page saying “Taxes filed” took it for face value. Phone kept sending notifications reminding me my “Taxes filed” little did I know it was messages from the CPA. Granted no notification in the app itself saying where to go for messages or if I had unread messages, needless to say this is the first and last time I ever use them after I fix this pretty massive mistake.

Worst Service EVER

Do not use them unless you want to be ripped off. It’s sad I used them for over 20 years and never had an issues until I was doing my taxes online and I accidentally purchased something and called them immediately and told them I made a mistake and bought something I did not mean too and the first two people said they would give me a refund no problem since I didn’t move forward from the moment I noticed I messed up. They are absolutely refusing me a refund now and now have a dispute with my bank to try to get my refund. I will NEVER use this company again. They are absolutely horrible!!!!!

Worst company to do taxes with

I filed in Jan and till this day I have not received it, I called turbo tax and spoke to 10 different representatives and nobody knew where my money is, then sent me to call their bank and they didn’t know where it was either so I called the irs and THEY DON’TKNOW WHERE IT IS EITHER! TURBO TAX THIS IS THE SECOND TIME YOU’VE DONE THIS TO ME! Worst app ever ZERO HELP! You should not be connected to the irs.

Trash

Having trouble creating an account so dumb because a few years ago I actually used Turbo Tax with no problems now it’s all Trash.

Not free! False advertisement! I used Turbo Tax for many years and I used to like it. Now I am very disappointed with the dishonesty in their advertising. I will never use it again. It has gotten more expensive every year, and this year, after spending the time to prepare my taxes, they all of the sudden, at the very end, tried to charge me almost $200. Now that they've gotten notoriety, they're making a cash grab. I took my business elsewhere, and got it done for free instead.

Waste of money- I paid extra for a professional to review my taxes, just to be certain I did it correctly, but all they do is have you share your screen for maybe all of 2 minutes, check in 2 places, then say "yeah, looks good, don't think you missed any deductions". I did not feel like the extra cost was worth that and I certainly didn't feel any more secure that everything was filled out correctly. This will be the last time I ever file taxes with Turbotax- do yourself a favor and avoid.