TurboTax denies glitch after Edmonton consumer complaint

A customer complaint which suggested there was a glitch in the TurboTax system — which had resulted in errant tax credits to Canadian consumers — was unfounded, the company says. 

"Ensuring the accuracy of our products is our top priority, as such each year our team of tax analysts thoroughly tests all products, and all products are government certified,"reads a statement from the company issued Friday. 

"We stand behind all our products with our 100 per cent accuracy, and maximum refund guarantees." 

The response follows a complaint from Edmonton's Alison Stephens who helped her son and daughter, both full-time university students, file their tax returns online.

But this month while using Intuit's TurboTax Premier edition, Stephens said she ran into problems with the forms. 

"This year I changed to a different program, the Premier program, and I started doing the tax returns for my kids," Stephens said.

"When I was doing it, I noticed there was a working income tax credit that was showing up at the end, even though in the situation of one of them, he had absolutely no working income. It was all based on scholarships."

The credit on each tax return is $1,122.

While filling out the forms, Stephens said the program automatically defaulted to the "yes" box for the Working Income Tax Credit which does not apply to full-time students.

Stephens said she was forced to physically change the credit in another area on the tax form.

But on her daughter's tax form, Stephens wasn't able to correct it and the return was sent in with the error.

Stephens said she called Intuit.

'We weren't entitled to this'

Stephens said she searched online forums and found others who had incorrectly claimed the $1,122 credit as well.

"So I phoned TurboTax and what they basically told me is that they wouldn't do anything about it until I had received a notice of assessment from the [Canada Revenue Agency].

"I said, 'You've had this error — you know it's an error because you responded to the person last year and you're not fixing it — and they said, 'I know.' "

In an interview with CBC News on Friday, company spokesperson Julie Smithers said there was no issue with their system, but Stephens had incorrectly entered information on her forms.

The company is working with Stephens, Smithers said. They've had no other complaints about the working income feature on their program, she said.

"Based on this customer complaint, our team of tax experts has re-tested our suite of products and confirmed that the WITB (Working Income Tax Credit) is being correctly calculated," reads a statement from TurboTax. 

"We have worked with this customer regarding the issue, and determined that the software accurately calculated the credit based on the information provided by the customer." 

The Canadian Revenue Agency says it has not received any complaints regarding mistaken claims related to the Working Income Tax Benefit credit.

"If a taxpayer notices that an error has been made, they should wait until they receive a notice of assessment to determine if their return has been assessed with changes to the return originally submitted, " said CRA spokesperson Randy Westerman.

"Although third-party software is certified by the CRA, the functionality is the responsibility of the developer," he added.

Stephens acknowledges that she didn't properly fill out the online forms, but she hopes the company provides more assistance to customers like her in the future. 

"Bottom line, I made a mistake," Stephens said on Friday. "But there was no help."