Dear TurboTax,

SBS0628 · February 2011

Please stop reminding us of all the money we could be saving/getting back if we just bought a house and/or had a baby. The pressure from the real world is bad enough without you chiming in every other screen.

Thanks, Childless Renters.

red daisy · February 2011

haha! Actually, having a baby negated the benefits we get from the house. Prolly wouldn't happen to you living in Cali, but since property values and taxes are so low here, I actually do better with the standard deduction (since there are three of us now) than I do itemizing since I don't pay that much in mortgage interest or taxes. Of course, that could all change. I am heading out to MA today (to Casey's neck of the woods) for an interview for a promotion! If I get it, we are going to have to pay at least twice as much for our house and probably at least triple or quad what we pay now in property taxes.

mamie329 · February 2011

Buying a house in a LCOL did absolutely jack for our taxes, so there may be an added benefit to buying a HCOC because your interest and prop. taxes would be higher than what I pay - but still, not all it's cracked up to be!

kaleyandjason · February 2011

We owe to the state this year, Apparently actually having a real job for the whole year this past year screwed us over. And the fact that my employer messed something up with my withholding. Thankfully it isn't much and we are getting a pretty good chunk of change back from federal, but still! And we have to start paying back our first time home buyers credit this year, so that kind of sucks.

SBS0628 · February 2011

Yeah, SoCal taxes are high enough that a house would've helped.

The thing that sucked for me is that, as a student (at two jobs last year), they won't withhold taxes from my paycheck. So we owed State. We got a teeny tiny refund from Federal, but it didn't even cover what we owed State, so it really doesn't matter (aside from that it means we pay less I guess...)

SBS0628 · February 2011

Plus, it wasn't so much that it would have helped or not...it was more the screens of:

Did you know you could be getting a bigger refund through some of these ways? Mortgage Interest Deduction, Dependent Care Deducation, etc...

It's just a little judgey-wudgey from a computer program. *harrumph*

luckycooky · February 2011

We used H&R Block and didn't get any of those messages from them but there are definitely enough of them out there. Yes, we got a refund in part because of Amelia but what we pay in diapers, formula, and medical bills far outweigh that. And because our medical bills are less than 7.5% of our income (thanks to great ins.) we could not even itemize them.

vhcoleman09 · February 2011

The kid and the house definitely helped us with federal. State is another story because I have an NIH loan repayment award that counts as income and, while it's great they pay fed. taxes on it, they don't pay state so we end up with a hefty state tax bill at tne end of the year plus a fee for underpayment. (I could pay estimated taxes during the year to avoid the fee, but I don't). Luckily this year, the federal refund covers what we owe to state taxes and also pays the first payment of our first time homebuyers credit with some left over, so we're happy.

anelms · February 2011

When I saw how much we owe this year I told my husband we need to have a kid soon for the tax deduction.

Dear TurboTax,

Re: Dear TurboTax,

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