Two pleasant surprises recently:
1) after taxpayer pays Turbotax $19.95 fee for e-filing a state return, it was rejected (federal return was accepted).State is California.
The error message was puzzling, in that it was just a simple math error, on the surface anyway. Specifically, the sum of state wages in Box 16 of all W-2's on the return must be reported on an information-only line on the CA Form 540, but the rejection message said the sum was not matching the calculated info-only line.
Even more odd, Turbotax on-screen advice says, "don't worry, nothing is wrong with your return, you don't have to change anything, but you do have to paper file your return". A quick check at the Turbotax support forum shows at least one other has had the same problem.
Turbotax allows repeated attempts at e-filing a rejected return without any additional fee, but does have a policy that if the return is transmitted but rejected, you are not eligible for a refund (because you're paying for the transmission service only).
But for the heck of it, taxpayer went to Intuit customer support contact screen and asks for a refund anyway, since it really does appear to be something that Intuit could fix. Amazingly, within one day a refund of the e-filing fee is approved and processed, without ever having to wait endlessly for a live phone operator (good luck finding any such phone number in the first place).
2) Taxpayer is still concerned about getting CA refund before they start issuing IOU's again, so really wants to e-file instead of mail-in. So, he checks out CalFile at the official state FTB web site. In about five minutes or less, most taxpayers without "uncommon" income, deductions, or credits can fill out a few CalFile screens directly from the output generated by Turbotax (or whatever tax prep process you use) and successfully e-file a return for free. Never would have tried Turbotax e-filing in the first place if he had known about CalFile.-Mark Bole