@ apolloaresathena
wrote: "If I use the CD Turbotax, I don't have to pay for the State and Federal filing fees together, but the online version requires that. Why?
I don't know what you mean by "pay State and Federal filing fees together", but I'll take a guess and explain something you may be misinterpreting.
There are NO efiling fees in Online TurboTax. Efiling is free for both Federal and state returns in the Online product. The online product fees are for preparation of the returns. There is a product fee to prepare the Federal return and a product fee to prepare the state return. But you can efile the Federal and state returns together at the same time with no extra fee. In fact, most people efile them together at the same time.
TurboTax has a screen that tells you that you can save time by filing them together at the same time. But there is no extra fee to do so.
You may be misinterpreting another extra fee you saw. If you saw an extra fee of $40 ($45 for California), it is likely the service fee if you chose the option to pay your TurboTax product fees out of your Federal refund. Did you choose to pay product fees that way instead of paying upfront with a credit/debit card?
If you chose that pay-out-of-refund method, you can avoid that extra $40 (or $45) service fee by removing that payment option and paying the product fees upfront with credit/debit card. If you chose that payment method, we can tell you how to remove it and pay upfront.
with the CD version e-filing the federal return is free but there is a fee for e-filing each state except for New York.
I wasn't clear enough, it appears. I've been buying the Turbotax CD for years at Sam's Club, and it's been costing around $40-50 total for both Federal and State returns. I can't use the CD this year since it doesn't support Windows 7. So I went online. Online says it will cost $60 for Federal and $50 for State - which is a huge increase. Why does it cost that much?
@apolloaresathena wrote:I wasn't clear enough, it appears. I've been buying the Turbotax CD for years at Sam's Club, and it's been costing around $40-50 total for both Federal and State returns. I can't use the CD this year since it doesn't support Windows 7. So I went online. Online says it will cost $60 for Federal and $50 for State - which is a huge increase. Why does it cost that much?
Sorry, but I don't know who sets the prices of TurboTax products. I agree the CD product is a much better deal and has other advantages as well, such as Forms Mode.