After being a very long time user of TurboTax and its predecessor Quick Tax I switched to UFile. Like others, we found TurboTax to have glitches this year and each year has become less intuitive and user friendly plus, there were price increases for minor things. Switching turned out to be a mistake on my part.I bought my UFile it at Staples and the box clearly stated “perfect for PC and Mac”. When I got started, it would not allow me to transfer previous years files and eventually learnt it was for Windows only. At no time did it ask for my activation key, which did not concern me because with TurboTax you enter that at the end.I was frustrated because I had already done my taxes on TurboTax, but not filed them. The amounts owed to me and my husband’s refund were different from TT so that led to me pouring over both as I had entered the identical information. I eventually got the amounts to match and feel it was an issue with how UFile did pension splitting calculations.In the process of doing this, I did a final review on TT which ran an optimizer and re-calculated the amount, payable and owed!I was back again on UFile once again, comparing the two programs lined by a line. Once again, it was related to optimizing pension splitting. Ultimately, I managed to get the final refund to be identical HOWEVER with UFile, it had the amount I owed as $1000 more and the refund my husband was getting to be $1000 more. I was annoyed about having to pay that money upfront and wait for the refund, but I was just too frustrated to continue on. Once again, I know from going line by line it was related to the pension optimization, which seems to be easier and less problematic on TurboTax.At this point, I went to finalize which included paying. After completing all the information I entered the activation code that was included in the box and It did not work. I went to the beginning of the instructions and followed through numerous times without any success. I should say during this time I was on hold with UFile for 2 hours and 15 minutes at which point I was cut off. Going through the other instructions in the box, I found a card that was the same size as the one with the activation code. It said this is your free voucher code; this card made no reference to Mac or PC and it read as if it was something you could pass on to somebody. I input that number and bingo, it worked and it turns out the green card and activation code only works on a PC. Why they say it is a free voucher code is perplexing because it’s not free; I paid for it. Also, on the box it says prepare for returns for tax year plus for additional returns included free for taxpayers with income $25,000 or less. They made something very simple so much harder and convoluted than it needed to be, and as much as that voucher code worked, technically according to their box, it shouldn’t have because our incomes are far beyond $25,000? How hard would it be to have one card that provides codes for a PC and a code for a Mac. This is not rocket science, and obviously not their first rodeo. Then I wanted to e-file which I’ve done for as long as I can remember. I entered the CRA Access Code from our 2023 assessments but e-file was declined and came back with an error saying that the Access Code was wrong. I re-entered and re-tried numerous times with no success. After a while, it wouldn’t even let me try again. Then with no help whatsoever, I decided to do my husband’s and bingo it went through right away. I’ve been tried mine again, and it also went through.This was the most frustrating year. I can remember doing taxes, and ironically, it was the most straightforward and simple as far as slips and income went. I anticipated this would take less than half an hour based on past experiences, but instead it took the better part of two days going back-and-forth. Not even sure why now that CRA is not incurring the expense of having to print and distribute the old paper copies to the degree they once did and go to the additional expense of processing them, why they do not have a universal online equivalent available? The differences between you file and TurboTax were quite significant and it shouldn’t be that way.Hoping with enough feedback, these companies will look at their programs and fix a few things. At the very least, adthey have to provide clear instructions for PCs and MAC’s.
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