Complaint Review: TaxAct.com

As others have noted, this psychopathic company has no integrity or ethics at all.  Their Customer Service is useless -- won't help you or connect you to higher management, and ultimately they'll go as far as telling you they aren't going to even try to rectify screw ups they made that caused you problems with the IRS!  BUT THEY DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT THAT ON THEIR WEBSITE.

What TaxAct.com does well is hire good writers who are probably lawyers to write happy words about how wonderful and safe and secure they want people to believe they are. After all, they are asking you to trust them with some of the most personal information you possess, including social and credit card numbers.  If they're not quite as solid as they want you to think they are, your private information could be at risk.  The truth is though, their services are not reliable at all.  And when they screw up they don't man up, so the IRS goes after YOU about it, like they did me.  Here's my story:

Back when I had a great job giving me a comfortable bank account I rarely bothered to check transactions and my ongoing balance, because I didn't need to.  I did care that my tax returns got filed properly though, so when I used TaxAct.com I followed their instructions to check back on the site to verify that the IRS had actually received the tax return transmitted to them by TaxAct.com.  It needed to take a little while because that return acknowledgement isn't instantaneous, but when I did check back, the TaxAct.com website indicated the IRS had received my tax return and everything was fine, no problems.  Great I thought, and went on to other things.  It didn't even occur to me to check that the money had been withdrawn from my bank account, it was just a drop in a bucket at the time.  My first mistake.

Next year when tax time came I went back to TaxAct.com and paid for their services a second time.  That was my second mistake, though I didn't find out for another year.  I did the same thing: the website seemed to perform as it should, my state and federal tax returns got prepared as before, and after I paid by VISA card they got submitted.  Couple days later, the site said the IRS confirmed receipt and all was good.  Fine for another year, I thought.  Even though my economic situation had changed that year because the company I worked for was hit with financial difficulties and I had gotten laid off. 

I still had a pretty fat bank account though so didn't sweat it, and again didn't check to make sure the transaction to the IRS had appeared on my bank account.  Dang I make a lot of mistakes, don't I?  At least (I think) I learn from them, and I am now warning you of what I have learned the hard way: ALWAYS CHECK YOUR BANK ACCOUNT TO SEE YOUR TAXES WERE ACTUALLY WITHDRAWN.  AND YOU CANNOT TRUST TAXACT.COM NOR CAN YOU EXPECT ANY KIND OF INTEGRITY FROM THEM IF THEY CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR YOU.

So the third year I go back to TaxAct.com still thinking everything about them is hunky dunky, until I go to validate who I am (I think that's why they do that) by entering the AGI from my prior year's return into the form.  I don't remember all the details but I spent quite some time trying to get validated until finally it became apparent that I wasn't going to get past the gate, so I quit at that point.  Long story short, what I finally discovered by talking to the IRS was that my prior year's tax return had never been filed!  And worse, neither did the prior year's return ever get filed! 

TaxAct.com had somehow fabricated or mixed up the information they had for me with someone else's, I don't know what went wrong in their system but they sure weren't interested in making it good in any way beyond refunding the money I had paid them.  They refused to take any significant responsibility for their mistakes, and I was hit by the IRS with a couple thousand dollars in penalties and fees on top of having to pay the taxes for the prior two years.  Which I am still doing in installments, as I am still unemployed and my bank account has grown much leaner. 

I now check the transactions and balance often.  I hope that all the bad karma TaxAct.com's psychopathic management has earned will come back to them in spades, and that they will be put out of business.  IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN JOINING A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST THESE LOWLIFES?  Are we allowed to network on RipoffReport.com?  I don't see anything against it in the FAQ so I will put my email address here for anyone who is interested in taking these frauds to court and taking their money away from them, hit them in the only place they have feelings.  Please email (((email redacted))) and tell me your story if you have been another one of their victims.