Credit Karma Tax Software still has flaw, please help spread the word to help your friends before they do their taxes.


I am asking my loyal readers to please help me spread this Warning.  The Credit Karma Tax software has at least one Major flaw in it. Please share my blog post with others you know via Twitter and Facebook. Hopefully if this gets passed around enough someone’s friend of friend will know someone at Credit Karma that cares about their reputation and they will fix this. In the meantime we can warn as many people as possible and avoid them paying more in taxes than they have to.

The issue I spotted appears to indicate they do not know how to interpret the tax code and even when an error is pointed out they have no one on staff to review how the tax code is written. As most of you know the tax laws and instructions for filling your taxes can be quite complicated. Many of us rely on tax software to help us file our taxes and we count on it being correct. However we are all responsible for the tax returns we file.

I am an attorney and financial planner so I am more likely to catch mistakes than others. I see where Credit Karma made their mistake and for weeks tried to get them to correct it to no avail. They do not allow single people to take the $1,000 catch up contributions to their HSA. This results in them appearing to have $1,000 more in income than they do. It results in them paying extra taxes than required, and subjects them to potential penalties.

While parts of code are complex this part is not. I gave them a link to the IRS instructions and connected the dots for them. They responded that the catch up does not apply to single people. I asked them where they found that in the instructions. They then came back and quoted the part of the instruction that tells how a married person claims the catch up contribution, thinking that somehow excluded single people for taking it. I went back and pointed them to the exact spot in the IRS instructions that is in clear plain English. I don’t think you need be a lawyer to understand this. It says;

“If at the end of 2017, you were unmarried and age 55 or older enter $7,750 for the month” (that is the $6750 for family and the $1000 catch up that Credit Karma fails to allow for no valid reason). “

I have not heard back from them after my last exchange but just checked and their software is still not corrected. It makes me wonder about what other flaws they may have in their system if they can’t fix the ones where the English is plain and clear, even after it is pointed out to them multiple times. If you agree this is not acceptable please warn your friends about using this tax software.

BTW I am just trying to help others with this post.  I have given up on Credit Karma for my own return and I have already moved on. I did my taxes with TaxAct this year. While it was not free like Credit Karma I guess you get what you pay for. If you use the link above in this post you will get a 20% discount. I did get a discount and was quite pleased with how quickly I got my taxes done. Needless to say they had no problem interpreting the plain English in the IRS instructions when it came to my HSA contribution. If you prefer Turbo Tax or some other software check with your financial institution to see if they offer a discount. If your income is below $66,000 and you meet other requirements you can find a link to other free alternatives for filing your taxes on the IRS website

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