Here’s a diagram showing all the Canadian tax software options, almost everything is made by a Canadian company except two of the most commonly used.
Please stop using turboTax and H&R Block, you’ll likely save quite a bit of money by switching to one of the Canadian owned options too. (H&R Block charges $49.98 for a typical couple, Studio Tax charges $17.50 for up to 10 returns). GenuTax is completely free to use.
Links to each of the Canadian options are available on ShopCanadianStuff.ca
The graphic is originally from ShopCanadianStuff.ca/blog
What’s everyone’s favourite? I’ve been using wealthsimple for the last couple years, honestly surprised to learn its Canadian and I don’t need to switch 🤷♂️
I used Studio Tax for a few years and found it to be adequate. Last year I tried GenuTax and instead and I didn’t like it as much. Instead of presenting you with the forms and you fulling them (which StudioTax does) GenuTax asks you a million yes/no questions one at a time. If you select “yes”, then it shows you appropriate, corresponding form to fill out.
I guess the good thing about this method is you are presented all the possibilities, the bad thing is you have to yes/no everything, including a million things that probably don’t apply to you.
Also, its not always immediately clear what form a yes/no will lead to, meaning if you select something wrong, you have to back track to correct it. (The questionnaire is linear, you can’t just jump back and forth.) if you have a very basic return, that’s probably fine. But I had some small self-employed income and international tuition, and going back and forth trying to yes/no my way to the correct forms frustrated me enough to switch back to StudioTax and start again.
I tried an alternate to but had to go back to StudioTax. The other program couldn’t deal with me claiming disability amounts for my child. Studio tax picked up a value in a field and says " hey we see you are claiming disability, make sure you have a Txxxx filed with CRA"
Why do all the Canadian options look like they were made by a teenager in 2004
Oh man, you should try Genutax…unless they’ve updated since I used it last (I’m a couple years behind), it looks closer to 1994
I used GenuTax for Pc for a few years beginning 2019. I’m not looking for pretty or sleek. It was clear and logical. And it was free! This year i bought Studio Tax (which i used for a few years in the ‘teens when it was free) for under $20 for up to 10 returns. It works great and is Canadian.
You don’t want to do your taxes with the Comic Sans racecar app “Tax Freeway (for Win)”?
Tbh I found the same. The one I use has garish colour scheme (which has improved) and initially I thought wtf. But their focus is the bankend, rules,math and logic. In 15 minutes I can have my taxes done and filed online and it only cost me $15 for max 20 filings.
Filed completely on my own this year. Wasn’t that bad. Idk why I haven’t been doing this every year 🤦
Can we remove AdvTax? I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting an LLM do my taxes.
Also, their website looks like this:
I don’t really care that they’re CRA-certified.
Be careful with where they store your data, they might be Canadian, but they might be storing your data in the USA and sharing it with USA companies. Read their terms.
I suggest using software that runs on your computer, like GenuTax, sadly it is windows only.
As far as I am aware, only a single online offer used to encrypt your data, but they removed it when they were bought by WealthSimple, so they could sell your data to third parties.
I like Studio Tax because I’m a Tax Stud
Has anyone ever done their taxes on a phone? Just curious if it sucks? I see a lot of Android/iOS software.
Works fine on Wealth Simple
CloudTax is great, very impressed and it was like $20 if I recall
How many of these support MRQ filing?
