Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Thank you for the information as to how to fix this issue.

However, I have some feedback for Intuit/TurboTax in this regard:

• The change that you detailed does not alter any of the values in the form named “New Property Rental WorkSheet”. Consequently, the Land/Improvements values on this form now make little or no sense and subsequently seem to be ignored by the software for the remainder of the return.

• I went back and deleted the rental property and then reentered it to see why I had entered this information incorrectly in the first place.

These are my observations:

• On initial entry, the values to which you refer are not presented for entry. All of the values that I had previously encountered and documented on my original communication regarding “discrepancy” remain, as stated therein.

• When I went back to manually change the value using 'Edit' in the “Your Property Assets” section, the “Cost of Land” value was already pre-populated, as before, despite the fact that this screen/page had previously not been presented.

• This means that the “Land” value was, indeed, derived from the source that I identified earlier and not from any value that I had entered erroneously.

• In order to change the value that TurboTax has calculated, the user has to be aware of this anomaly and manually return to the “Assets/Depreciation” section with no indication that this may be necessary.

I find this situation to be very alarming. Had I not been very thorough in my verification of the results that TurboTax generated , understood what the actual IRS requirements are and the consequences of all of the myriad of various forms and worksheets used by TurboTax, I would not have noticed this 'discrepancy' - a term that I now feel justified in using, albeit an insufficiently extreme one.

In addition, had I not only identified this issue but raised it with Intuit/TurboTax and received an (admittedly) correct and swift response, I (or anyone else, in such a situation) would have found it difficult, if not impossible to rectify this error using this software.

This has destroyed any confidence that I may have had towards the accuracy and use of TurboTax and I am left with the fear that there may be more of these hidden issues that I am unable to identify – not that that should be my responsibility when using (so-called) industry-leading software!

Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the tax-code, there is no alternative but to use software in this regard and I will almost certainly have no option but to continue using TurboTax.

However, if there are any more of these 'quirks' and they lead to an IRS audit or worse, I will have no alternative but to hold Intuit/TurboTax responsible.

In this specific instance, where depreciation is at issue, this error is compounded by the fact that it perpetuates every year with a reduced deductability on each occasion.

In my estimation, this issue represents either a “bug” in the software or, at least, an error in the way that user-entry screens/pages are presented.

While I commend your rapid response, I am extremely disillusioned with this software and its consequences. I am, however, fairly confident that this exact issue will have been experienced by many other users of this product and that most, if not all, of them will be unaware of any potential financial loss that it may have caused them.

I suggest that this “bug” be rectified immediately.

In addition, this issue was only identified whilst verifying the returns for both 2016 and 2017, prior to filing them with the IRS and State. Since the 2017 return was based on the 2016 return, which is now in error, what do I need to change in the 2017 return to correct for this situation without having to re-enter the entire return from scratch?

I eagerly await your response to my observations (and corresponding comments/evaluations) and also to my question.

Thanks.

P.S. This message was initially sent privately, as a reply to the received email which was created as a result of the original post. Having failed to obtain any response and having reached the conclusion that email replies are not being read or processed, I feel that there is no alternative but to post it here in this public forum.