IMHO phones and tablets are simply not an appropriate environment for business, including completing tax returns. I'm sure that a lot of CEO and CIO types might disagree, but then I don't have an army of employed developers behind me to build the "dashboards" that they use to make their million or billion dollar market moving decisions (like getting rid of the TurboTax desktop product line). It's just little old me trying to keep up with the ever changing IT world, and there's no way that I could do that on a 4 inch interface, much less develop and test simple scripts and applications to workaround all of the BS out there (corporate and otherwise).
Ask me how many times I've had to help my wife figure out exactly where that little doodad that she ordered on her phone from Facebook marketplace is coming from, and when (hint: it's usually coming via ChinaPost, God knows when, and she had no way of knowing that due to the very limited environment in her mobile phone browser). And please don't get me started on how it's nearly impossible to right-click a link in a mobile browser to confirm that you are not being directed to some scam website or actual Malware Hell. YIKES! 😱
I don't claim to earn well above average, just that my returns tend to be... complicated (through no fault of my own, I have the IRS to thank for that). My tax checklist has reminders to address the following (as applicable for the tax year in question): rentals, MLPs, WHFITs, Section 1256 contracts & straddles and Form 6781, Schedule K-1, collectible capital gains and losses, cryptocurrency, FBAR & Form 8938 reporting, etc. I would wager that 90% of the online filers don't need to concern themselves with these specific issues, or simply refuse to bother with them. (There are recent posts here from new users asking what to do about failure to file tax returns, a question that I simply could never allow myself to be in a position to ask...)
My desktop PC business environment includes a repository for every tax year of all the documents that I believe would be reasonably required to survive an IRS audit. Some of that info includes data entered into worksheets which are nobody's business but my own. I simply don't trust that documentation and my actual tax returns to be properly protected in some third-party cloud (provided by Intuit or anyone else). Those providers can claim "end-to-end" and "data-at-rest" encryption all they want, but unless they have a method to let me the data owner exclusively hold the encryption keys then it's all just marketing hot air.
Yeah, I'm probably in the overall minority here with my filing situation (and also with my paranoia :^) but if any software company would like to step up to the plate I am certain they will find a continuing niche market for desktop-based tax preparation software. Such software at any reasonable price would still be cheaper than an actual CPA or tax attorney. And I'm sure there are also plenty of people like me who feel compelled to understand and work on every important aspect of their life themselves if possible, rather than farm that understanding and effort out to someone else.
If you've got this far reading my reply, thank you for reading my blog. 😂
