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Browser Tax?

We all know Tax season is here (in the US). So don’t forget to file. We also know there is a Microsoft Tax (you know, the price of the pre-installed copy of Windows on your soon to be Linux PC), and it is possible to get it refunded. New this year is a browser tax, as seen on Digg.

Want to know how much you’ll be paying? There is a formula, but I’ve got a cheat-sheet to help you out. Simply find your browser/platform and look at the filing price. Click to see the full screen and get all pricing. I did this myself between 6:40 and 7:00 PM EST today. Took a little while to crop and get it all together. Yes they are real. No photoshopping done. Note that free filing is offered in certain cases and not in others (which I presume is the offering as part of the free filing program).

Want to get the biggest deduction on filing your taxes with TurboTax? Just look below for the best deal.

For more great financial tips keep an eye on this blog. Next time we’ll talk about how my 401(k) is also incompatible with my browser, and since I used the contact form to mention the bug, it now warns me on every visit.

I’d love to hear Intuit’s explanation of why they are serving different products to certain browsers, and why they are charing different prices in some cases. Amazon tried something like this based on user profiles a few years ago, and it caused some trouble. You can find some information on that by searching Google for amazon price fixing.

Is it legal to make the Free filing option less visible to some users? Hard to say. There is an agreement with the IRS in place that facilitates all that. Didn’t see much about promotion or hiding the offering.

Images in various browsers/platforms can be found below on this post.

Safari (Mac)

TurboTax on Safari - Mac

IE (Win)

TurboTax on IE - Windows

Firefox (Mac)

TurboTax on Firefox - Mac

Firefox (Win)

TurboTax on Firefox - Windows

Opera (Mac)

TurboTax on Opera - Mac

Opera (Win)

TurboTax on Opera - Windows

3 replies on “Browser Tax?”

cs: yes, that’s what I did before the initial test.

For the record, things have changed this morning:

– Opera/Win has dropped the free option. Deluxe is now $34.95
– Firefox/Win has Deluxe for $29.95

Didn’t check any other browsers. Clearly this shows there are still problems.

Wtf? That’s insane.

I got my copy of Turbotax for Mac (federal taxes only) on this year’s MacWorld for free, but I still had to pay a lot of money because I had to file taxes in two states, each of which Intuit charges 25 dollars for. Then again, when you want to e-file your taxes and don’t want to print out and mail in a lot of paper, you pay another 16 dollars (each, i.e. 3 times).

They really know how to get the most money out of your pocket.

Leeches.

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