Why is the online cost for premier so much lower than the auto renewal product i purchase?

[seanrei]

I was charged $106 and the online Premier product is $55

[SteamTrain · Accepted solution]

1) That sounds like your Desktop purchase was Home & Business...not Premier.

2) Online software does not include a free state download....add $37 to that Online price.

3)  Online software can only do One tax return..no extras for family,...no test files...no "Forms Mode" to look at anything.

4) Most (but not all) experienced users prefer the desktop versions as a far superior product

..........you do have to be careful to back up each year's files to offline storage every year though,...both the .taxyyyy datafiles and the PDF files. There are hundreds of people every year who come in here begging for a way to recover files form their crashed computers.or disks....back up those files

..even if you do use the Online version..if you don't pay for it each year, you lose access to the stored Online tax files....there is no link between the Online version and the Desktop version...the files are only stored in whichever version you are using for that year.