Greetings. I think I have a bit of an exposé for you tonight, friends. So pay attention.
Its coming down to that time of the year again when we start to think about taxes. W-2s in the mail, 1099s, etc., etc. Last year, I was a very happy user of Turbo Tax Online (Link) and so I decided to go back again and use the service. So I was very surprised when I noticed something very strange. Take a look at the image below. These were captured in two different browsers on the same machine, my machine. I'm running the latest fully patched version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
| Browser: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 | Browser: MS Internet Explorer 7.0 |
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Notice anything unusual? Firefox on the left tells me that the cost of Turbo Tax online is $39.95. IE 7 on the right says $25.45! What gives? Is this some weird Microsoft subsidy to the cost of filing my tax return?
Alarmed by this, I decided to do additional tests. Safari lists the prices for me on my machine as $29.95. Furthermore, at my office, my Windows XP machine lists the price in both IE 6 AND Firefox as $29.95!!
So I'm really confused as to what Intuit (Turbo Tax's parent company and maker of Quicken financial management software) are trying to accomplish with this random pricing structure. I couldn't find anything out about it on the website, but I did find a single solitary post about this from last year in the blogosphere! Unfortunately, the author of that post was panned as a faker, but I'm here to tell you that's not the case. The screenshots above are legit.
Anyone out there who wants to double check it can. I'd love to hear what other people are seeing listed as the price. If you comment, please let me know what browser and operating system you're using. Frankly, I don't think its fair for Intuit to price the product differently for different people. I don't think it should matter one bit (especially not on the Web) if you're using IE, Firefox, Vista or XP, or Macs and Safari.
Also, if anyone can find some printed justification from Intuit or acknowledgement that this is real, please pass it on.
Given the inconvenience of switching tax software in mid stream, I will continue for now with Turbo Tax Online, but in the future, I will probably seriously reconsider using them if they continue this sort of unfair pricing structure.
