TurboTax 2018 Will Require 10.12

[jasnw]

Just installed TurboTax (hohoho) on my El Capitan main iMac and was greeted by the cheery note that if I want to use TurboTax for my 2018 taxes I will need to upgrade my OS to 10.12. I hope Sierra is stable enough (for me) by then. Wonder what TurboTax needs from Sierra that El Capitan doesn't have?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Too bad for those with perfectly good Macs that can’t be updated.

 

[Partron22]

Perfect excuse to buy a little external SSD upon which to install Sierra, and do your taxes.
When done, you'll be left with a nice fast drive, and el Cap still on your main drive.

 

[jasnw]

Hmmm. Given lemons, make lemonade. Interesting idea - put all tax stuff on an external encrypted bootable drive, keep it in a safe deposit box. Backing up the records on separate hardware in an encrypted disk image, of course.

 

[TonyK]

If I were to hazard a guess it likely could be they are being cheap and only testing with the latest OS available. Might be time to consider finding a new tax package. < sigh />

 

[BrianBaughn]

It’s possible there would be a workaround editing some package file.

 

[Bart Kela]

Another possibility would be to install macOS Sierra on a virtual machine although I think the external USB3 SSD drive is a better alternative.

 

[mikes63737]

If I were to hazard a guess it likely could be they are being cheap and only testing with the latest OS available. Might be time to consider finding a new tax package. < sigh />

+1. This will be my second year using H&R Block software to do my taxes.

https://www.hrblock.com/tax-software/deluxe-tax-software/
It supports > 10.7 and is frequently on sale. I paid $14.95 for Deluxe+State for this upcoming tax season, which includes federal e-file and state software (state e-file is extra, but I will just mail since I will owe state tax). Not the prettiest UI but it works well.

If you want to stick with TT, there is also a web-based version. However in my experience Intuit is a scummy company so the price will creep up weekly -- I don't remember if you lock in the price when you start your return, or once you actually file.

 

[TonyK]

+1. This will be my second year using H&R Block software to do my taxes.

https://www.hrblock.com/tax-software/deluxe-tax-software/
It supports > 10.7 and is frequently on sale. I paid $14.95 for Deluxe+State for this upcoming tax season, which includes federal e-file and state software (state e-file is extra, but I will just mail since I will owe state tax). Not the prettiest UI but it works well.

If you want to stick with TT, there is also a web-based version. However in my experience Intuit is a scummy company so the price will creep up weekly -- I don't remember if you lock in the price when you start your return, or once you actually file.

Used to use them but something happened, don't recall details now, and stopped. Went with Turbo Tax. But I'm not committed to a specific vendor as long as the taxes get done.

Won't use online services because I don't want my information on their servers.

 

[allpurposeguru]

Too bad for those with perfectly good Macs that can’t be updated.

A lot of us are in that boat. I can't upgrade past El Capitan without buying new hardware, putting it on a external drive won't work, it's not supported by my Mac.

Some idiot who gets a new computer every year undoubtedly made this decision, not thinking about how many people in their user base they will alienate. There are very few things that Sierra provides that the coders at TurboTax couldn't work around.

TurboTax 2017 works, what the heck would they be adding?

 

[chscag]

Switch to H&R Block when it comes time to do your 2018 taxes. I try to avoid anything from Intuit. Worst customer service in the world in my opinion.

 

[HenryAZ]

Another possibility would be to install macOS Sierra on a virtual machine although I think the external USB3 SSD drive is a better alternative.

I have always used the virtual machine option. Works well, for quite a few years for me. Doesn't clutter up the real boot drive with cruft that must be saved from year to year.

 

[AppleUserDownSouth]

If I were to hazard a guess it likely could be they are being cheap and only testing with the latest OS available. Might be time to consider finding a new tax package. < sigh />

[doublepost=1522355132][/doublepost]Yep. I bailed on Quicken years and years ago when they pulled an "repurchase/upgrade now because we're not supporting any previous data formats on older versions any longer." Seems Intuit continues with their strong-arm upgrade tactics. Let's see what happens next year. If there's enough pushback maybe they'll reconsider. Otherwise, I hear HR Block software is pretty good and have used them before.

 

[NoBoMac]

TaxAct gets good marks, though maybe not as user friendly as Turbo or H&R.

Re: H&R, I know everyone's situation is different, but have a friend who ran into a couple of errors (calculation/form entry) with H&R's software. Did not pry about exactly what, but he also mentioned that he got an IRS "love note" about errors in 2016 taxes (again, tracked it back to H&R error).

I too am in the same boat re: 2018 TY software and Turbo. If no new Mac by the time I do taxes, most likely will do TaxAct. Or Turbo in my Win10 VM.

 

[chscag]

I've never run into calculating errors with either TurboTax, H&R Block, or TaxAct. Errors are usually caused by erroneous input by the user. I ran into a problem with the IRS some years back because I neglected to enter some data correctly. I managed to straighten it out with the IRS by letter (they were satisfied) but if I had been careful I could have saved myself a scary time when I received notice from the them.

 

[allpurposeguru]

Perfect excuse to buy a little external SSD upon which to install Sierra, and do your taxes.
When done, you'll be left with a nice fast drive, and el Cap still on your main drive.

If your computer can't run Sierra this will not work.

Even the frickin' clipart for Turbotax hasn't changed in almost 10 years (same 3 dudes show up in the start screen that have been there since then) what in hell are they changing that requires the new OS?

It's tax software, not a video game.

 

[csweetmia]

A lot of us are in that boat. I can't upgrade past El Capitan without buying new hardware, putting it on a external drive won't work, it's not supported by my Mac.

Some idiot who gets a new computer every year undoubtedly made this decision, not thinking about how many people in their user base they will alienate. There are very few things that Sierra provides that the coders at TurboTax couldn't work around.

TurboTax 2017 works, what the heck would they be adding?

[doublepost=1540259119][/doublepost]I read it is about security updates and not supporting older macs. Just bought a mid 2012 on Amazon with Sierra 10.12 for $1000 I hope I can use this one 8 years like my last one.

 

[jeremysteele]

Switch to H&R Block when it comes time to do your 2018 taxes. I try to avoid anything from Intuit. Worst customer service in the world in my opinion.

Couldn't agree more. Been pushing my family away from Intuit for years, 9/10 times when I go over to "fix an issue" it ends up being related to their bloatware. Bad installs, corrupted updates, corrupted data files (yep, new quickbooks do this a lot. Even my accountant is looking to switch). Intuit software is just a mess.

After years of doing my own taxes I finally decided to find a good local accountant to do them (pretty low cost, too. Only costs me $20 more than the home/business edition of turbotax/h&r software I needed would have cost).

 

[TonyK]

Back in the old days, tried using an accountant until they screwed up and it costs us a lot of money considering what we earned and the cost of living back then.

Tried one in the last 13 years in our new location. He gave us bad information upfront on 2 issues, one of which would have gotten us audited if we followed it. The other bit of advise has stranded money in an IRA that never got us any tax benefit and will make withdrawing harder in the future. It was put in the IRA with post tax dollars, not pre-tax dollars.

No, I will use software when/where possible for doing my taxes.

 

[jeremysteele]

It was put in the IRA with post tax dollars, not pre-tax dollars.

It sounds like they may have missed the traditional IRA deduction - which could have been easily fixed via an amended return. You sure it wasn't a Roth IRA?

Anyway, sorry to hear you've had bad luck. My previous accountant was pretty terrible as well. I can definitely relate to your aggravation there. In my case he kept sending tax returns in late (despite meeting in Feb.). Ended up getting his NY license revoked after I (and a few of his other customers) reported him. He refused to cover the penalties despite it being 100% his fault... that's a no-no.

Current accountant does all the numbers right in the office when I'm there, and submits them within a few days, after one of firm's partners does a sanity check (part of their way of catching mistakes on tax returns). Much smoother.

If you have a pretty quick/easy return, it is really simple to do it yourself, can't blame you there. There's free online filing available now too, depending on income. In my case I have a business in additional to a full time job, and investments... gets a little overwhelming to deal with every year.

 

[TonyK]

It is a traditional IRA.

Won't use online filing because of security concerns for NPPI data. While our returns are pretty simple, there are a few wrinkles that prevent us from using the simpler software or lite versions.

Used to use TaxCut but it went to H&R Block so I switched to Intuit.

 

[TonyK]

TurboTax for tax year 2018 has a new notice that for tax year 2019, the macOS must be 10.13 or higher (aka newer).

While my laptop can run 10.13 and 10.14 I'm not interested in updating my copy of macOS because other software will quit working.

So next year I'll have to find new tax software. Sorry TurboTax, you do not get my business next year.

 

[fathergll]

DELETE

 

[RUGERMAN]

A lot of us are in that boat. I can't upgrade past El Capitan without buying new hardware, putting it on a external drive won't work, it's not supported by my Mac.

Some idiot who gets a new computer every year undoubtedly made this decision, not thinking about how many people in their user base they will alienate. There are very few things that Sierra provides that the coders at TurboTax couldn't work around.

TurboTax 2017 works, what the heck would they be adding?

I'm writing this on a 2009 iMac with a 3.06 core two duo, running High Sierra perfectly. 10.14 not supported but 10.13 Runs all the software I've come across so TurboTax would certainly run fine. I think I should be good for at least another couple of years yet.

 

[chscag]

TurboTax for tax year 2018 has a new notice that for tax year 2019, the macOS must be 10.13 or higher (aka newer).

While my laptop can run 10.13 and 10.14 I'm not interested in updating my copy of macOS because other software will quit working.

So next year I'll have to find new tax software. Sorry TurboTax, you do not get my business next year.

Typical Intuit. Upgrade or here's the door. I'm probably biased against everything Intuit, but I have never found anything about any of their software or support that was adequate.

Buy H&R Block Tax software instead. It costs less and will work with your older version of macOS.