Warning: TurboTax 2024 STILL NOT Apple Silicon Ready!

[romad]

I had to end up buying a new MacBook Air to use TurboTax to do my 2024 taxes. I ended up buying an M2 MBA and since it has been 5 years since the first Apple Silicon Mac were released, I figured TT would run on my MBA. Nope, when I tried to launch it after installing it, I was told I had to still install Rosetta for it to run.

Why does Intuit refuse to release an Apple Silicon version?

[rjs]

TurboTax does not tell us the reasons for their marketing decisions. If they do not support a particular platform, I would assume that it's because they feel that the market is too small to sell enough copies to cover the development cost.

[romad]

Apple doesn't make any Intel Macs, they are now all Apple Silicon. However, I may have found the answer: The LAST version of MacOS that WILL run on Intel chips is the current MacOS 15 "Sequoia". So TurboTax 2025 and subsequent versions will have to run on both Intel AND Apple Silicon chips for several years.

[Alohart]

TurboTax 2023 was built with a current version of Apple's Xcode development app.  Building a universal binary that would run natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon CPU's is merely a matter of checking an Xcode setting.  Maybe Intuit uses only old Intel Macs to build TurboTax or has no Apple Silicon Macs on which to test TurboTax.  If so, this is just lazy.

While Rosetta will run Intel binaries on Apple Silicon in emulation mode, it's not as fast as running natively, so TurboTax is slower than it could be when running on Apple Silicon.  We TurboTax customers who run modern Apple computers pay the performance price even though we pay the full price for TurboTax.  This is just inexcusable!

[romad]

Alohart, the question is about TT 2024 not 2023.

[Alohart]

I had not purchased TurboTax 2024 when I posted.  The latest TurboTax that I had was TurboTax 2023 which I examined to try to determine whether Apple's development tool, Xcode, was used.  After licensing TurboTax 2024, I confirm that it is still only an Intel executable as you wrote, so everything I wrote about TurboTax 2023 applies to TurboTax 2024 and TurboTax 2022, TurboTax 2021, etc., all the way back to when Xcode began supporting Apple Silicon executables.

[TAXHELLAGAIN]

Apple has announced Rosetta 2 will no longer function as of macOS 28. So for tax year 2027 either the universal binary will be available or TurboTax will be discontinued on the Mac platform. With no announcement from Intuit, I will potentially make the change for tax year 2025 to a different tax software. 

[baldietax]

what announcement are you expecting for something happening 2 years from now.  why change for 2025 over this issue?

[TAXHELLAGAIN]

Good question. First of all, right now I can open all my text returns for the past 7 years. Two years from now I will not be able to open Turbotax'24. TurboTax'24 will no longer run on macOS 28 which comes out two years from now. Intuit has not confirmed that TurboTax will continue on the Mac platform past the 2026 Tax Year. Since they have provided no information at all, I am beginning to wonder if they will no longer support the Mac. I just Updated the TurboTax'24 Software and it is still not a Universal Binary. 

[romad]

Ah, it doesn't matter because TurboTax DOES run on Apple Silicon Macs! I used TurboTax 2024 (when it came out) on my MacBook Air M2 that I had bought as a refurbished unit (NOT new). So you don't need to use Rosetta to run Intel Mac applications. This thread should be closed.

BTW, I keep BOTH the TurboTax Mac software AND file along with a PDF of each year's return for future use IF needed.

[TAXHELLAGAIN]

TurboTax runs on Apple Silicon Macs because they run Rosetta 2. An Intel Binary does not run on Apple Silicon Macs without Rosetta 2. All new Macs currently come with Rosetta 2 installed. Starting with macOS 28 "Rosetta 2" will not exist. And no Intel Binary will run. The same reason a PowerPC binary will not run on an Intel Mac anymore after Rosetta "1" was discontinued. Go to the Applications section of the System Report to see the kind of application. A "universal binary" is a two forked binary with both an "Intel" binary and an "Apple Silicon" binary. 

Here is the link to the press release from Apple: Intuit doesn't allow this.

Here is another link: About the Rosetta translation environment 

[baldietax]

@TAXHELLAGAIN thanks - I think it's filtering the press release link

[TAXHELLAGAIN]

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@baldietax wrote:

@TAXHELLAGAIN thanks - I think it's filtering the press release link

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Since Apple's article numbers are the same digits as phone numbers, Intuit removes them...

Here is another link: 

About the Rosetta translation environment 

From the above Apple Document:  

Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27.

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I had problem editing with the Safari Browser, this is the reason for the additional post. Now using Google Chrome.

Note: Intuit / Quicken had the same problem when going to the Intel Machine. Quicken 2007 Stopped working. I had to install a windows emulator and switch to Quicken for Windows for a Period of time to get back functionality. 

[romad]

My MBA M2 apparently doesn't have Rosetta on it according to the System Report, Spotlight, Applications, etc. However, it is possible that Apple may have pre-installed it on Macs newer than mine or it may be installed on my MBA but not visible until I try to install an Intel-only application. If you try to launch an Intel-only application, you'll be notified you need to install Rosetta. Once you've done that then you will have it installed. 

[baldietax]

@TAXHELLAGAIN thanks for this further explanation on the issue.

Intuit only supports the current version and last 3 years - since they introduced their license activation server in 2019 - older years' s/w should continue to run but you won't be able to activate it on a new computer for example so it's not reliable to depend on back versions of the s/w beyond that point (always export PDF with all forms and worksheets for your official record).

But seems if moving to this OS in 2028 when we would expect 2027 tax year plus 2026/5/4 to still fully work, then 2024 at least would not run, and the risk is if you need to file an amended return at that point which would be close to the 3 year deadline if filed April 2025.  That's probably manageable, but gets worse every year that passes so the question is whether Intuit is doing anything about it in the 2025 version?  We'll see in Oct/Nov what type of binary it is (I'm sure someone will purchase the early version and can confirm the binary type on this forum; I usually wait til January).

Meanwhile, the best way to voice concern on this issue and maybe get some direction is to write to the President - the folks complaining about end of support for Win10 and ItsDeductible have said they've been getting callbacks (fwiw) - I don't think you'll get any sort of answer or direction from Intuit on this sort of issue in this forum.

https://www.intuit.com/company/contact/office-of-the-president/