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by Josh Baltzell.
Original Post: Problems doing my taxes...
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I generally do my taxes in April. Most people that I know seem to do them then. This year when I saw that envelope with my W-2 I was all over it like mousse on a mullet.
I decided that the fastest way was to see if I could download TurboTax. I got on the website and found that I could do everything online. I was all about that so I started my 1040-EZ and got everything in but my stupid form 1099-DIV for $26 worth of dividends I made this year from stock.
So I get out of that one and sign in to the more expensive basic plan. Everything looks almost exactly the same as the EZ one. So I get in to support chat. Below is a transcript. I kid you not this portion took nearly an hour after waiting to talk to someone.
You have been connected to C Ray. C Ray: Hello Josj , how may I help you today? Josh Baltzell: Hi, my situation that I entered is not exactly accurate. I am having trouble on the web finding the place to enter a 1099-DIV. The forms seem the same in basic and for the 1040-EZ C Ray: Josh,If i am right you are using TurboTax for the Web Basic 2003 product in Windows XP operating system and have problems in entering your data ? Josh Baltzell: Well, Everything worked fine for me. I just don't see a place to enter my 1099-DIV form anywhere. Yes, the rest is correct. C Ray: Josh,Please give me a moment to research the issue. Josh Baltzell: are you stil there? C Ray: Josh,Please stay with us. We are researching your issue. Josh Baltzell: ok C Ray: Josh,thank you for staying online ,could you please tell me if you have your product open ? Josh Baltzell: Yes I do Josh Baltzell: I'm looking at the "Other Income" tab C Ray: Josh,could you please click on the income tab. Josh Baltzell: The W-2 Income tab? Josh Baltzell: I am currently looking at the 1040EZ online version. Should I be using Basic? C Ray: yes ,Josj Josh Baltzell: Okay I just loaded Basic for the web and loaded my existing file. I have a "W-2 Income" and an "Other Income" tab. Josh Baltzell: Wait, it may still be using 1040EZ Josh Baltzell: Okay, I am in basic now Josh Baltzell: I have the same tabs. Where would you like me to go? C Ray: Josh,click on the income tab. Josh Baltzell: I see 6 tabs. 2 is W-2 Income and 3 is Other Income. Those are the only income tabs I see. C Ray: Josh,could you please tell me if you see menu " Personal Info" " Income" "Deduction". Josh Baltzell: He is what I see: In the upper left of the web browser it says "TurboTax Basic". I have 6 tabs along the top that say "Personal Info" "W-2 Income" "Other Income" "Misc" "State Taxes" "Filing" Josh Baltzell: My W-2 and all other info is entered. All I have left is this 1099-DIV form for my stock dividends. C Ray: Josh,Could you please tell me if you are in Web basic product ? Josh Baltzell: Yes, I am using the web based product and it says "TurboTax Basic" in the upper left of the browser. C Ray: Josh,below,that "TurboTax Basic" do you see "TurboTax Home"? Josh Baltzell: Yes I do C Ray: Josh,Next to that do you see," Personal Info" " Income" "Deduction"... Josh Baltzell: No, I see "Personal Info" "W-2 Income" "Other Income" ... C Ray: Josh,Please give me a moment to research the issue. Josh Baltzell: I thought maybe that the 1040-EZ wouldn't let me type in info from that form so I moved up to basic. Basic looked identical so I thought maybe I had to make a new filing, but it still looked the same. The agent's network connection was lost. C Ray has left the session. Please wait while we find another specialist to assist you. You have been connected to C Jeff. Thank you for using TurboTax Chat. You may now close this window.
As you can see I got the pleasure of being disconnected from support after no help at all. After waiting for over 10 minutes I got back in and explained everything from that conversation I just had to the new support rep, explained everything on my screen including all the names of the tabs and told him anything I could think of to help him. I used to do tech support for a forture 500, so I know what is helpful and I know that sometimes just laying everything out at once can help find the problem quicker.
Although this new guy was very polite (I don't know his name since I didn't get a chance to save that transcript), he asked me to do the exact same thing as the last guy. “Please click on the tab named Income sir”. At that point it was getting harder to type due to the heaping piles of my own hair littered about the desk where I sat and got support from a person reading from a one page troubleshooting sheet. If I had to guess I would sa that Intuit was hiring chat support out to a company dealing with many pieces of software. These were not TurboTax experts by any means.
Okay, just to salvage this post and make it not a total waste of bandwidth used specirfically for my venting I will tell you and the rest of the Internet what I did to SOLVE MY OWN PROBLEM.
Since I had started with the 1040EZ online software I was stuck in that mode. No matter if I started up any other version of the TurboTax for the Web it would still give me identical options. I could continue a return or start a new one, it didn't matter. What I had to do was create a brand new account and start with the version of the software I needed (Basic). Then I was given the full options that go with the version.
I hope this helps someone somewhere, because I don't want anyone else to have to deal with supports VERY limited knowlegebase.
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