Turbotax is becoming more greedy and greedy....

The CRA should make e-filing available and FREE for all Canadians by building it into its website

but this is unheard of in the rest of the world

gibor365365 wrote: ↑ 100% agree! But CRA it's their own empire and don't care and possibly don't have capabilities

It's unheard in the rest of the world that pensioners and employees should fill out taxes at all!

When I've seen "big book " called Filling taxes, I chickened out and decided to pay $30 or so to fill out electronically, bit the problem that it becomes more and more expensive! Seriously, to charge senior who has 0 refund it's brutal!

callernamet wrote: ↑ I think only one country files taxes for every taxpayers as they have all the records and no need of filing. Anyone know which one? I will search again for that.

Most employees working in the UK pay all their tax through the PAYE system and are not required to submit a tax return.

gibor365365 wrote: ↑ I'm doing taxes for my mom , MIL and kids (students). Because they have very low income, they never required to pay for using Turbotax.
This year, regardless of your income, if I enter T5 by myself or enter foreign pension, Turbotax doesn't allow me proceed unless I upgrade (pay option).
For myself and my spouse, we always used Standard version, but now with same tax slips (when I entered T4PS that is not populated in CRA autofill) , we're locked until we upgrade to some Deluxe version that is twice more expensive...
This is ridiculous!
Are there other software that are free and allow to NETILE?

gibor365365 wrote: ↑ 100% agree! But CRA it's their own empire and don't care and possibly don't have capabilities

Kiraly wrote: ↑ Just Say No to the state-sponsored scam that is the farming out of tax e-filing to private companies that charge you a fee or nag your for a donation. We have been conditioned here in Canada and the USA to believe this is normal, but this is unheard of in the rest of the world. I used StudioTax from 2014 to 2019 because it was free, but have since returned to filing on paper. The CRA should make e-filing available and FREE for all Canadians by building it into its website: Just log in and file.
Try filing on paper. It's really not that hard or time consuming.

Kiraly wrote: ↑ Of course it has capabilities. The CRA hires data-entry people to plug in all of the data from filers' paper returns. All they need to do its port whatever interface the data-entry people are using, to its public website that the rest of us can see after logging in. They could probably hire a high school kid to do that over a weekend.

So why don't they? Every dollar that Canadians spend on tax filing software is another reason lobbyists for the tax software industry to go to Ottawa and say "See? Canadians are happy with the system as is. They willingly pay for it every year. It's working. Keep paper filing around for those who want a free option; we'll take care of the rest." That's why I refuse to pay for tax filing software. I have never paid.

gibor365365 wrote: ↑ Also , banks like CIBC and TD used to give 20% discount on Turbotax, now I cannot find any

will888 wrote: ↑ When Ufile came along and provided a very similar product to quicktax (previous name for turbotax), I jumped ship and never looked back. That was more than a decade ago. Ufile is about 50% cheaper these days. Since Ufile allows installation on 2 computers, it is very economical to buy the 12 return version and share with a family or friend. There is no way I would go back to paper because the income splitting optimization pays for the software many times over plus my time is worth something even if I am making money with the time saved.

MikeMontrealer wrote: ↑ Last year CIBC sent out the discount message on March 5, so it *might* send another one this week.

gibor365365 wrote: ↑ Hopefully! I need to file 5 returns and it would be helpful. If somebody gets it and posts, it would be great

IndyBeak wrote: ↑ How much is Turbotax? It might be worth to pay for StudioTax. It is 15+HST and you can 20 returns.

CanadianLurker wrote: ↑ While this hasn’t happened in Canada, I think it’s too late now for CRA to jump in and provide this service now. If they had actually done this in the early days before the pay-to-file industry got started then it would have been possible. But, now that the pay-to-file industry has been built up it would be politically difficult to try to do it now

The Government will also work to introduce free, automatic tax filing for simple
returns to ensure citizens receive the benefits they need.

arandomguy wrote: ↑ The Liberal's throne speech in 2020 actually mentioned -



https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/pco-b ... EN_WEB.pdf

I remember hearing somewhere that the CRA was in the process of developing a pilot program to do this, but can't remember the source.

Supposedly you can actually trigger an audit by filling out a null paper return and the CRA will do it you in which you the only have to confirm the return they send back to you.

Kiraly wrote: ↑ Of course it has capabilities. The CRA hires data-entry people to plug in all of the data from filers' paper returns. All they need to do its port whatever interface the data-entry people are using, to its public website that the rest of us can see after logging in. They could probably hire a high school kid to do that over a weekend.

So why don't they? Every dollar that Canadians spend on tax filing software is another reason lobbyists for the tax software industry to go to Ottawa and say "See? Canadians are happy with the system as is. They willingly pay for it every year. It's working. Keep paper filing around for those who want a free option; we'll take care of the rest." That's why I refuse to pay for tax filing software. I have never paid.