I don't really care if it is a "marketing ploy"! I "subscribe" to getting TT every year, I don't know, care or pay attention to what other tax programs are doing. They could simply send a businesslike email saying they will make the software available, and charge us for it, when the IRS has completed their work.
Rather than a marketing ploy (no benefit to me), they use their announcement that TT is "ready" as a reason to charge the credit card. I strongly suspect that the version they first make available has only superficial changes from the prior year...but hey, it's worth nearly $100.00 to them whenever they want to say it is "sold".
I will be interested to see if "QCDs" are computed properly this year. I just finished explaining to the IRS that I filled in the taxable/not taxable entries on a 2018 1099 exactly per the TT instructions and entered the amount on the bottom line (QCD) of the 1099-R. Rather than deduct the QCD amount from taxable income as I assumed, apparently TT simply ignored that entry making AGI and everything else too high.
