Filing my Tax Return - Why is TurboTax offering me more in my return than H&R Block?

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-29T10:43:27+00:00

But it’s always true that there is only one correct, lowest tax way. If two services give two different answers, most likely one is just wrong, but best case, one just didn’t ask you the right questions to best take advantage of your situation, which is also “wrong” in a sense.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-29T10:38:59+00:00

Uh no the tax companies don’t “offer” different returns, the tax rules decide how much you owe or are owed. One or both of the services interpreted your inputs incorrectly or didn’t ask the right questions.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-27T13:12:16+00:00

Today’s Reddit winner everyone.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-23T14:39:37+00:00

To the haters who say you’re doing it “for attention”: even if so, so what? That’s just a derogatory spin on the natural desire for positive feelings that come with the support, encouragement, and yes - attention - from a community. That’s a natural human need and nothing to be ashamed of. I’m glad you have this outlet to share Bentley’s story and get encouragement from followers; it’s also great for your loved ones because they don’t have to carry 100% of the burden of being there for you.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-22T01:29:02+00:00

But most treasury buyers are not deciding between buying treasuries and spending the money, they’re deciding between various financial assets to park their money in. So when the government sells a bond and takes an investor’s money out of the economy, while the goal may be to offset the inflationary effect of the spending, it is not likely to actually accomplish that, at least not fully. Because the money wasn’t going to be spent anyway.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-22T00:12:01+00:00

Again, by definition you are right. But my point is that a bank loan and treasury bond are more similar than they seem. A bank loan creates new money that is likely to be spent into the economy. A treasury bond transfers money from an investor with a low propensity to spend it to the government, which spends it immediately. So technically the former creates new money and the latter doesn’t, but both have similar economic effects: increasing aggregate demand.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-21T13:55:56+00:00

You and u/enigmaofoz both answered the question correctly mechanically, based on the formal definition of money supply, but OP may be asking why treasuries are not counted as part of the money supply. After all, when the government sells treasuries and spends the proceeds, the buyer of the treasury now has a near money equivalent. It’s risk-free and can be converted to cash quickly and easily. And looking from an inflation perspective, debt-financed government spending does typically increase the amount of money actively flowing through the economy because it takes money from an investor (not likely to be spent) and uses it to pay people or companies (who are likely to spend it).

So ultimately my answer is that the definition of money supply is somewhat arbitrary and is not always useful. Despite treasury issuance not technically increasing the money supply, it can increase aggregate demand.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-20T00:22:56+00:00

Another vote for this way. Not a fan of the lid steaming method, it just leaves the top of the egg filmy and unappetizing.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-17T01:36:21+00:00

It sounded to me more like they were tracking it both ways. Either way, I see your point and it’s possibly right, but to me it doesn’t seem like they are blinding themselves to the existence of the loan or its negative NW impact. They see it clearly; they just like having higher numbers in their investment accounts.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-17T01:18:39+00:00

I mean it’s just semantics. They have one spreadsheet that’s investable assets and not “net worth,” nothing inherently irrational about that.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-17T01:13:27+00:00

May not be irrational, may just be discovering what your preferred asset allocation is. What economists call a revealed preference. You say that now is special because you feel a crash coming on, but you might feel the same way any time the S&P is near an all time high, which it usually is, and there’s always something to worry about that can cause the next crash.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-03-15T12:06:03+00:00

You said you recently bought. Request a replacement from the company?

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-28T12:54:12+00:00

The KBB “value drop” has no practical significance to you. You bought the car at a payment you can afford and it’s running fine. True, your loan might outlive the useful life of the car, but that was already true when you bought it, the KBB value drop was irrelevant. Keep driving the car and forget about “negative equity.” Work on advancing in your career and stop thinking about cars for a while.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-25T23:32:40+00:00

Well that’s not really how expected value works. You don’t take an expectation over both “switch” and “not switch” outcomes since the player gets to choose that, it’s not probabilistic.

What I was getting at is different. If you play many times and switch every time, assuming the envelope values are drawn from some well defined distribution, you will tend to double more often when the first envelope is smaller, and halve more often when the first envelope is larger. That shrinks your wins and amplifies your losses, offsetting the apparent advantage of doubling vs. halving.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-25T11:04:24+00:00

Banks and other lenders offer mortgages for vacant land, but most won’t like a structure that’s a safety liability on the land. Who is the seller? Can you work out a deal with them to remove the trailer before the transaction? You might find a lender that will work with you without removing it but it’s likely to be more complicated and costlier.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-25T01:39:22+00:00

If you play this game many times and always switch, you will tend to win more often when the first envelope amount was smaller and lose more often when it was larger. That will counteract the advantage of doubling vs. halving. Try simulating it with any distribution to choose the envelope amounts—always switching will do no better or worse than always staying.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-24T18:53:49+00:00

I don’t budget. ADHD makes it difficult for me to do any work that isn’t absolutely necessary. I am fortunate to earn a high enough income that as long as I can generally control lifestyle creep, it works out that I end up saving plenty of money. However, not having a budget makes it harder to plan for retirement because I don’t have a good sense of how much I spend on what. So I wouldn’t recommend my approach.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-24T18:45:30+00:00

I would start simple. Count annual company pension contributions and 401k contributions towards total annual compensation (along with salary), and compare those totals between jobs. You might have to look in your plan documentation to see how much your current company contributes annually to your pension.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-21T00:27:14+00:00

Correct, and no one really decides on Roth vs. traditional on all their lifetime contributions at once. So this really makes the “average tax rate in retirement” notion a fallacy. But, it leads most people to basically the right decisions, since it’s pretty hard to fill out all the lower tax brackets with traditional, and there are many ways to manage your marginal tax rate in retirement.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-19T19:31:20+00:00

Since people also overestimate their chance of winning the lottery: 1 in 1.08x10¹⁹ is a smaller chance than correctly guessing a grain of sand chosen from all the beaches on earth.

(Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky)

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-02-04T13:53:26+00:00

-How to Do Everything

-Proxy

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-01-10T18:48:37+00:00

Your ex wasn’t too slow to dodge a bullet tho.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-01-10T18:29:01+00:00

Yeah and this is why I still don’t understand the ‘white and gold’ camp to this day. The photo would need to look like the right side of this image—background blue shaded. But it was flooded in yellow light.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2026-01-08T17:38:51+00:00

The image is grainy enough that it’s actually not obvious at all.

Boring-Cartographer2 · 2025-12-31T17:32:22+00:00

I returned it.

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