Is there a walk-through for doing estate taxes?

[PfunnyGuy]

I have to fill out the taxes for my late aunt's estate.  I've upgraded to small business TT so I can do the required Form 1041, but I cannot get TT to do anything but ask me about money paid to employees.  How am I supposed to get it to ask about liquidated assets (ex: house), heirs, and the like?

So far I've spent 2.5 hours on the phone, and 4 hours on my own, and I don't see a path forward.

[VolvoGirl]

Did you buy the Home & Business version?  Sorry you need to buy the separate Business program.  
You need to buy Turbo Tax Business, not to be confused with the personal Home & Business version. TT Business is not available to do online or on a Mac. You can buy the Windows Desktop program here,
https://turbotax.intuit.com/small-business-taxes

[tagteam · Accepted solution]

Did you not see the response to your other post on this issue?

You are starting in the wrong place at the beginning of the program.

[tagteam]

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@PfunnyGuy wrote:

So far I've spent 2.5 hours on the phone, and 4 hours on my own, and I don't see a path forward.

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Also, @VolvoGirl made an excellent point; ensure that you have the correct product.

The foregoing notwithstanding, and no offense intended, but if you are having this much trouble getting the return for the estate started (or choosing the correct product), you might consider having the 1041 prepared by a local tax professional as the level of complexity is only going to increase after you start the return on your own.

Moreover, TurboTax does not offer "walk-throughs", return reviews, or guidance from employees for returns being prepared with TurboTax Business.

[PfunnyGuy]

I had not seen the reply on my other post.  I was on the phone with TT support for an hour who was (apparently) too dumb on the product she is supposed to support that I didn't have the correct product.  

TY

[PfunnyGuy]

I guess I didn't know there was a separate Business only version because it isn't on the TT "Compare Products" page:
Compare TurboTax® 2021-2022 CD/Download Tax Software Products (intuit.com)

Talk about a red herring.  Especially because Home & Small Business has an option for "Fiduciary / Trust Form 1041".

[VolvoGirl]

If you scroll down on that page right below the versions it says you need Business to do an Estate/Trust return.  The Learn More button takes you to buy the Business program.

[PfunnyGuy]

My point is that there is no mention of the Business product on the product comparison page, leading one to think that the chart comparing all products in fact compares ALL products.  The information I got about needing the Business version didn't come from the comparison page.

AND at the very least, the first person I talked to should have know this and told me that I had the wrong product.  FIRST QUESTION:  Let's make sure you're using the correct product.

THREE %$^&* phone calls.  No one asked me that.  But the tax expert did berate me for not "Trusting the Turbo Tax process" to get my taxes done.

[tagteam]

@PfunnyGuy 

You might want to check the information available at the link below that lists states returns not supported by TurboTax Business.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/state-taxes/help/which-states-are-not-supported-in-turbotax-busine...

If you discover that you need to file a return for the estate in one of the unsupported jurisdictions, you will be relegated to preparing that return manually. 

[PfunnyGuy]

@tagteam Thank you! I'm in one of the states that isn't supported!  Which isn't even suggested on any of the pages I saw from Intuit about how easy and simple TT makes doing estate taxes.  At least now I know that TT won't get me there from here.

That should be the SECOND question asked by anyone doing tech support that is asked about Estates: what state are you in?  Because we only support Estates in less than half of the country... 

[tagteam]

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@PfunnyGuy wrote:

That should be the SECOND question asked by anyone doing tech support that is asked about Estates: what state are you in?  Because we only support Estates in less than half of the country... 

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I agree and the suggestion has been made to list the unsupported states (or only those states that are supported) on the product purchase page.

[PfunnyGuy]

They also need to list their Business product on the page with all of the personal products.  Knowing I needed the Business product, but not seeing on the comparison page led me to believe that TT just didn't support businesses of a certain size or larger because it was in a different realm of tax regulations that TT doesn't support.  It never occurred to me that it was a different product with a different purchase page.  If you have a product comparison page, list all of the products.  Otherwise you're implying that the other products don't exist.

But at $170, I won't buy it.  I can do the same thing H&R Block Deluxe for $75, or TaxAct for $125.  After TT wasting 8 hours of my time on this, I'm pretty sure that I won't be back next year for my personal taxes either.  I'll be testing their competitors products.  Add on to that my Tax return bouncing around for no obvious reason while inputting my tax info this year (it went up by $900 by entering a missing zip code on a form, then down my $800 by saying my son was in college and not a felon) I have lost trust in what TT is doing.   

[tagteam]

@PfunnyGuy 

Currently, you can get TurboTax Business for $120 at Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/TurboTax-Business-Software-Federal-Return/dp/B09K2H8PTS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=...

The other products might offer more states, however, but check before you buy one of them.