It's part of a trend - "the latest in what's been a history of various methods tax software companies have used to get extra money from taxpayers," she says. Kathleen DeLaney Thomas, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, tells Money it's not just a TurboTax issue. What's the Deal With the Refund Processing Fee?Īccording to recent tweets from the Refund Processing fee "is charged by the Santa Barbara Tax Product Group," a TurboTax affiliate company that needs it to cover unspecified "services rendered." Basically, it's a fee to pay your fees. If I, a personal finance reporter who spends 40 hours a week working on a magazine called Money, didn't catch this fee, would other people? What's it used for, anyway? And why is it so tricky to remove?
#Lowest price on turbotax basic 2018 how to#
I clicked back through the pages of my return, each time a little afraid I would mistakenly delete some crucial piece of information, until I figured out how to deselect the Refund Processing option. I may be lazy, but I'm not sacrifice-$40-because-I-don't-want-to-find-my-wallet lazy. That's what I was charged for the Refund Processing Service, which surprised me when I went to check out and saw my bill was way higher than I thought it would be. What I didn't realize was that my laziness had a price - of $39.99, to be exact.
Why would I get up and dig out my debit card when I could just pay TurboTax from the pool of money I was about to get? I was at my kitchen table, and my purse was in my bedroom. So when I was doing my taxes a few days ago - right before the April 17 deadline, because I'm also a chronic procrastinator - and TurboTax offered me the option to take its preparation fees directly from my refund, it seemed like the obvious choice.
I order a lot of takeout, I love to sleep past noon and I prefer to take Ubers instead of the subway. Not so much a slacker, but definitely a couch potato. Let me just cop to this right now: I can be pretty lazy sometimes.
0 kommentar(er)
