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Intuit TurboTax 2024 (Tax Year 2023) Review

Comprehensive tax prep with an exceptional user experience

editors choice horizontal
4.5
Outstanding
By Kathy Yakal
Updated February 2, 2024

The Bottom Line

While pricey, TurboTax makes it easy to prepare your return thanks to its state-of-the-art design, guidance, and comprehensive coverage of tax topics.

PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Pros

  • Outstanding user experience
  • Thorough, conversational interview Q&A
  • Covers tax topics in exceptional depth
  • Excellent help resources and virtual support options
  • Great mobile apps

Cons

  • Expensive
  • Some help responses come from community members, not Intuit

Intuit TurboTax 2024 (Tax Year 2023) Specs

Imports Competitors' Returns
All Major IRS Forms and Schedules
Comprehensive Navigational Outline
Chat Help
Phone Support for Tax Topics
Hyperlinked Help In Interview
Context-Sensitive Help
Searchable Help Database
Mobile Access

Intuit's TurboTax has a history of excellence that goes back more than 30 years. The company packs a lot of substance and style into its products, with thorough coverage of tax topics in an easy-to-follow interview format with top-notch support. For many years, TurboTax has come out on top of our reviews of the best personal tax preparation services. This year, Intuit has added an AI-powered tool called Intuit Assist to make the experience of preparing your taxes even smarter. Other areas of TurboTax have been streamlined, simplifying setup and data entry for filling out your Schedule C. All of TurboTax's products are now available in Spanish as well. Despite being pricier than much of the competition, TurboTax offers more than enough to earn it our Editors’ Choice award.

H&R Block is also an Editors' Choice winner, with better contextualized help than TurboTax, though TurboTax has the best overall experience for filing taxes. If you're looking to spend less, we recommend FreeTaxUSA, our Editors' Choice for the best free service for federal filing (state filing costs just $14.99).

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How Much Does TurboTax Cost?

TurboTax has new, higher pricing this year, and overall it costs more than other online tax prep services. Instead of offering four DIY products as it has in the past, there are three. Investment sales and rental property have been moved up to the highest tier, and the prices for the paid products have gone up by $10. 

The Free Edition (federal and state) is for taxpayers claiming the standard deduction with no more than these specific tax situations: W-2 income, limited interest and dividend income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and the student loan interest deduction. 

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For $39 federal and $39 state (the prices will rise to $69 and $59 later in the tax season), you can add itemized deductions. This tier doesn't seem to have a name anymore other than simply TurboTax DIY—previously, it was called Deluxe. You get this rate if you don't have rental income, self-employment income, expenses, or any other more advanced tax situations.

TurboTax Premium covers everything in the lower tier and adds support for reporting rental income and self-employment. It now costs $89 for federal and $39 for state, but those prices will increase to $129 and $59 later in 2024.

TurboTax remains the most expensive tax service. FreeTaxUSA and Cash App Taxes (formerly Credit Karma Tax) are free for federal filing, though FreeTaxUSA charges $14.99 for state returns. Neither offers anywhere near the guidance and user experience excellence that TurboTax provides, though FreeTaxUSA comes closer. But even when compared with H&R Block, which also has more guidance and help, TurboTax is still more expensive. For example, H&R Block Self-Employed ($85) is similar to TurboTax Premium ($89, later $129).

If you need help from a human, TurboTax offers that for a different price. As you prepare your return, you can contact one of Intuit’s experts virtually using TurboTax Live Assisted to ask questions and get a final review of your return. Using TurboTax Live Assisted currently costs $169 for the federal Premium version but will go up to $219 later in the season (state returns $49 now, $64 later). For $359 federal (later $409), tax pros will handle your entire federal return from start to finish (that's called TurboTax Live Full Service). State filing is also $49 now, $64 later. H&R Block offers similar services.

Through March 31, 2024, taxpayers with simple returns (topics in the free version) can use TurboTax Live Assisted Basic for free.


Is TurboTax Safe to Use?

Intuit helps safeguard your data and protect your privacy by using industry-leading technology and practices. The company constantly tests and improves its cybersecurity practices, collaborating with security researchers worldwide and providing safeguards like multi-factor authentication and AES-256 data encryption.

Filing Your Taxes Online: What You Need to Know
PCMag Logo Filing Your Taxes Online: What You Need to Know

Whenever you are entering personal information, such as your Social Security number and birth date, into a website, you should always take additional safety precautions, such as using a trusted network—your own home Wi-Fi, for example.


How Does TurboTax Work?

TurboTax originated the wizard-based approach to tax preparation. This tool takes you through a lengthy series of pages, one at a time, in a logical order. You answer the questions asked by entering data, clicking buttons, and selecting from options. You can also import data directly from some forms, such as W-2s and 1099s (if your employer or financial institutions are TurboTax Import Partners). Or you can type in the data yourself. In some cases, you may be able to upload a form from your computer or snap a picture of it. Investment transaction imports are especially flexible. You can import up to 10,000 stock trades and 20,000 cryptocurrency transactions from more financial sources than any competitors allow.

TurboTax alternates between walking you through a Q&A and showing you lists of available tax topics. After you complete the federal section, it transfers data to any state returns you must file, combs through your return, lets you fix any problems, asks you to pay, and helps you file or print the finished product. The process works beautifully, saving time, easing frustration, and dramatically reducing errors. 


How Do You Get Started With TurboTax?

If you filed your income taxes using TurboTax or another online tax prep app last year, you can import key data from your previous tax return to save time. TurboTax walks new users through the setup process, requesting information like contact details, Social Security numbers, and dependents. The setup is slightly more consolidated than before. It then moves you through income, deductions and credits, and miscellaneous tax issues.

The personal information section of TurboTax asking about dependents, with guidance showing in the right vertical pane
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

What Kind of Help Does TurboTax Offer?

TurboTax feels like one long conversation, not just a collection of pages. It uses clear, understandable, and lively language. It’s proactive, explaining financial concepts as it introduces them and giving you links—sometimes several—on the interview pages. These links open context-sensitive articles and how-tos, usually in a right-side vertical pane where you also find direct links to topic pages when appropriate. 

TurboTax’s Intuit Assist catches missing data and sometimes displays it in the right vertical pane
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

The help pane contains two other types of guidance. First, you can search for words and phrases, as you’ve always been able to, while the help tool returns multiple links to help articles and related pages on the site. The second, Intuit Assist, works like an AI-driven version of the old TurboTax Assistant. It often returns the same thing as the search tool, only it “converses” with you so you can ask follow-up questions. And it leans, which the more traditional guidance doesn’t.

In testing, when Intuit Assist didn’t have an answer to my exact question, it changed the question slightly. This didn’t always give me the answer I needed, but at least the AI picked up on some of the keywords. Most of the time, I got a simple explanation and links to related help content, some of which came from TurboTax community forum pages, not Intuit employees. Both of Intuit’s help tools seem to respond better to shorter queries.

TurboTax’s AI-driven Intuit Assist finding answers to a question
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

H&R Block also has a traditional search option and an AI-driven interactive tool, AI Tax Assist. The latter tends to return one long response rather than multiple suggestions, as like TurboTax does. But H&R Block’s traditional search is top-notch—just as effective as TurboTax’s. In addition, the content in H&R Block’s right vertical pane changes dynamically, displaying new context-sensitive help as you advance through the site. TurboTax does not do this.

As mentioned, you can get human help if you pay for TurboTax Live Assisted. And if you pay even more for TurboTax Live Full Service, Intuit's tax professionals will fully prepare and file your return for you.


How Does TurboTax Deal With Self-Employment?

TurboTax Premium accommodates sole proprietors who file a Form 1040 and a Schedule C. Its target market includes small businesses of many types, including gig workers who are, for example, marketplace sellers, Uber drivers, or delivery people. This section of TurboTax starts by asking for your profession and posing standard small business questions, which other tax prep services, like TaxSlayer, do too.

TurboTax displaying a summary of income reported so far
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

If the companies that pay you are TurboTax 1099 Import Partners, you can import the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC forms or manually enter the data from them and any 1099-Ks you have. Direct imports through Square are also supported, as is income that wasn’t reported on a 1099 form, like cash and checks. TurboTax walks you through the entire process of reporting your income.


A New Way to Enter Expenses

Here's a DIY tax first that no other service has tried: If you do online banking, you can connect your financial institutions with TurboTax to import transactions and allow TurboTax to categorize them (for only one line of work). This is an ambitious endeavor, and I experienced mixed results in testing. 

The import from a very active credit card worked fine and only took about five minutes. But while it got some categories right, I had to edit them a lot, partly because my expenses were a mix of business and personal. All my medical costs were assigned to health insurance premiums, for example. When you’re done editing the categorizations, you can have your expenses added to your return automatically. This could be a real time-saver, but I’d give TurboTax's categorization abilities some time to mature before relying on them.

You can also enter your individual expenses manually or just enter a total later. TurboTax highlights expenses most common in your industry and looks for ones you might have missed. It selects the categories most commonly reported for your profession, like vehicle expenses, home office, and office supplies, but you can choose additional ones.

When you’ve completed the income and expense sections and answered some additional questions, TurboTax reports your profit or loss on the appropriate forms. 

A business expense data entry page in TurboTax
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

Does TurboTax Check Your Return?

When you finish your data entry, TurboTax's final review examines your return for accuracy and alerts you to errors and omissions.

If you owe taxes instead of getting a refund, you can have the money withdrawn from your checking account. You can also submit your payment on the IRS’s Direct Pay site. For state taxes due, you must contact your state department of revenue. 


Can You Do Your Taxes on Your Phone With TurboTax?

Even if you have a complex tax return that includes investment sales or self-employment, you can do your tax preparation and filing on TurboTax’s mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android. The apps are attractive and intuitive, making them a pleasure to use. They look and work like the desktop version and offer simple data entry and import options. Bravo.

TurboTax's Android mobile app: a charitable donation page, one of the 1099-K data entry pages, and the beginning of the cryptocurrency section]
(Credit: Intuit/PCMag)

The Best Tax Preparation Software for Most People

While we wish that Intuit TurboTax Premium wasn’t so expensive, we can’t argue with its excellence in every area, which is why it's an Editors' Choice winner for filing your taxes online. While it lacks H&R Block’s always-on contextual help, it offers multiple types of guidance on every page. It digs deep to help you find every bit of income you must report and every expense that could help you get a bigger refund. It's the most aesthetically pleasing site, too, which makes it pleasant to use. Like all online tax services, TurboTax improves every year—it just takes bigger steps than most.

Two other online tax services are Editors’ Choice winners this year. FreeTaxUSA is our top pick for free federal filing (and only $14.99 for state), while H&R Block is the best TurboTax alternative for its excellent contextualized help.

While you’re thinking about taxes, read up on seven ways to minimize your taxes and what to do if you can't pay your taxes.

Intuit TurboTax 2024 (Tax Year 2023)
4.5
Editors' Choice
Pros
  • Outstanding user experience
  • Thorough, conversational interview Q&A
  • Covers tax topics in exceptional depth
  • Excellent help resources and virtual support options
  • Great mobile apps
View More
Cons
  • Expensive
  • Some help responses come from community members, not Intuit
The Bottom Line

While pricey, TurboTax makes it easy to prepare your return thanks to its state-of-the-art design, guidance, and comprehensive coverage of tax topics.

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About Kathy Yakal

Contributor

I write about money. I’ve been reviewing tax software and services as a freelancer for PCMag since 1993. Along the way, I took on reviews of other types of business and personal finance technology. Prior to that, I had spent a few years writing about productivity and entertainment applications for 8-bit personal computers (my first one was a Commodore VIC-20) as a member of the editorial staff at Compute! 

After working at Lawson Associates, now Lawson Software, I switched my focus to accounting but learned that personal computer applications were more progressive and interesting to cover than mainframe solutions. So I served as editor of a monthly newsletter that provided support for accountants who were just starting to use PCs. I still ghostwrite monthly how-to columns for accounting professionals. From there, I went on to write articles and reviews for numerous business and financial publications, including Barron’s and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine.

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Intuit TurboTax 2024 (Tax Year 2023) $89 Premium, State Additional at TurboTax
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