TurboTax Removes E-file Fee (for real this time)
Tuesday December 16, 2008
The comments have been pouring in from readers responding to my blog posts about the pricing policies for e-filing fees with TurboTax and TaxCut, and now TurboTax has come around to amending its e-filing fees. Julie from TurboTax posted in comment #26 that as of December 11, 2008:
"TurboTax desktop customers can prepare and print MULTIPLE returns at NO ADDITIONAL COST - eliminating the $9.95 additional return preparation fee we had at the start of the tax sesaon. We also do include 5 federal e-files at no additional cost. We just want you to know that we heard you and your opinion counts."When considering TurboTax tax preparation software, keep in mind that this statement specifically applies to the desktop download or software CD. All versions of TurboTax Online include one federal e-file. At least that's what is listed for TurboTax Online at the time I write this.
It seems to me that it is difficult, time consuming and costly to do damage control after a product releases with a new price structure with little to justify that new price. From what I've heard, TurboTax beta testers spoke out about the initial "TurboTax costs more, but now you don't pay to e-file" pricing during the testing. If this is so, Intuit would be better off trusting beta testers by giving their opinions the same weight given to potential customers.
Comments
Intuit’s response is a too little too late. All they did was drop the per file fee’s and match the 5 free federal efile offer that TaxCut had extended a week earlier. Turbo Tax did not roll back their $15 price increase over last year. So in the end, Turbotax Premier lists for $89.95 while TaxCut Premium lists for $49.99. Intuit makes such a big deal about how they listen to their customers, but it is now so obvious that they consider customers as revenue stream
to be milked.
Removing the efile file but raising the price is nothing but a wash. It’s like they’ve reduced the size of the can and raised the price at the same time, and we’re not supposed to be smart enough to figure it out.