Turbotax: 10% extra on Federal return for Amazon Gift Card

[Kaido]

I saw this on my Turbotax online version too:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8K9KZS/

If you choose to have your Federal tax refund given as an Amazon gift card, Turbotax & Amazon will give you 10% on top of whatever you put on it (you can split part or all of your Federal refund to an Amazon gift card if you'd like). Max gift card is $10,000, so really (per Fatwallet), $9,259.25 * 1.08 = $9,999.99 for a max bonus of $740.75. Still, that's not bad if you're planning on blowing it anyway - a $5,000 Federal return nets you a $5,500 Amazon Gift Card, so that's an extra $500 for doing nothing.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Part of me really wants to do this.

The other part knows it's a terrible idea and that I would end up buying stuff I don't need

 

[Kaido]

Part of me really wants to do this.

The other part knows it's a terrible idea and that I would end up buying stuff I don't need

Yup. If I didn't have to shell out for school next semester, I totally would have jumped on this

 

[smackababy]

So, if I have to pay in taxes (as I do this year), will I owe Amazon an extra 10%? I bet that is how they are able to offer this deal!

 

[gorcorps]

Almost jumped on this when I filed. Decided I'd rather have cash in the bank to save and pay bills with than a bunch of Amazon credit, which I'd probably blow through on stupid stuff because I knew I had the money.

 

[ahenkel]

https://turbotax.intuit.com/lp/ty13...26272_int&priorityCode=3468341816&PID=5226272

Prices for turbotax are cheaper here but you get the same refund+ Amazon GC option

 

[misch]

Thanks

Title should say "refund" not "return"

You file a tax "return", you might get a tax "refund"

 

[sciencewhiz]

https://turbotax.intuit.com/lp/ty13...26272_int&priorityCode=3468341816&PID=5226272

Prices for turbotax are cheaper here but you get the same refund+ Amazon GC option

They are only cheaper if you don't need to do state. It's $36 additional for state. With the box version, state is included.

 

[CA19100]

Cool! Living in Seattle, we frequently get our groceries delivered by Amazon Fresh, so this would be fantastic. Thanks for posting it!

 

[Doppel]

Part of me really wants to do this.

The other part knows it's a terrible idea and that I would end up buying stuff I don't need

That is my worry also. i think I will do $500 minimum, maybe a grand. i don't want to do more because I may just feel like it's there to be spent.

 

[desura]

I honestly can't think of anything from amazon that I'd need for...1k. Only thing might be like a macbook.

 

[fleshconsumed]

That is my worry also. i think I will do $500 minimum, maybe a grand. i don't want to do more because I may just feel like it's there to be spent.

Yeah... I'm going to have to third this thought. As much as I'd like to think I'm resilient to the pressure to spend amazon gift card balance, sadly I'm not. It's just too easy to convince yourself to buy something that you kind of need, but not really. That's the sort of things that get me to spend my "gift" balance - I see an item on sale that I know I could do without, but I could probably use. With the "gift" balance it's just so easy to convince yourself that you do need that item. Basically, I turn into a woman buying shit just because it's on sale...

 

[dmw16]

Nice deal if you were gonna buy from Amazon anyway, but I think I'd just blow this on stupid shit.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

i would be all over this, except all my data is in H&R block and i usually have to pay a little every year.

 

[TuxDave]

Nice deal if you were gonna buy from Amazon anyway, but I think I'd just blow this on stupid shit.

Haha, yeah exactly. I'm pretty sure my tax return this year will be significant (lots of weird financial turns this year). I not sure if I want to lock in thousands of dollars to Amazon purchases.

 

[Doppel]

Well, I just filed my return. I was going to do $600 so that the 10% would cover the Turbotax fee. On the final page before hitting Approve I read the terms.

This works because instead of IRS sending money to you, it sends it to a third party. That third party bank creates a temp account for your entire return, forwards the non-amazon bit to you, keeps the rest, and you end up with your Amazon GCs. It also keeps "applicable taxes" whatever the hell those are. My state taxes are damn near 10% anyway, but let's for a second pretend that it means nothing.

What doesn't mean nothing is further down the page there is a table of information you can and cannot opt out of, and basically if you agree to this the bank is going to sell you up the river to all its affiliates. So now they know who you are and they know what your return was, a pretty nice piece of info for them. So enjoy your spam mail.

Oh, you can of course opt out of some of this by calling their number, but I presume as soon as they have your info they shotgun huge tons of information to affiliates so that even if you call the cat is already out of the bag.

So, I said hell no, I am not that cheap a lay and didn't engage in this.

 

[batmanuel]

This doesn't help me much since I wound up owing $2 this year, which is pretty much winning at taxes because I got it so close to zero on almost $100k of household income.

 

[smackababy]

This doesn't help me much since I wound up owing $2 this year, which is pretty much winning at taxes because I got it so close to zero on almost $100k of household income.

I try and do this every year (keep it as close to $0 as possible). Somehow, this year, I was over on state by $100 (which makes zero sense as it is a flat 5% IIRC) and oew $50 on federal. =(

Last year I mopped up though, because I only worked about 6 months.

 

[GusSmed]

So enjoy your spam mail.

If spam is your primary concern, presumably you can create a disposable email address for the return. Once it's done and you have the Amazon gift certificates, delete or ignore it.