In a Rare Decision, Court Accepts Tax-Prep Software Error Defense

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In my opinion, this is a joke.

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I quite agree. The relevant passage from the decision, "While transcribing the remaining information, however, he made a data entry error that prevented the amount of interest income from being correctly displayed on Schedule E…", contains two unusual items in my opinion. First, it clearly identifies a taxpayer error in entering the data, and second it claims that interest income recevied from an estate will be reported on Schedule E. Interest income is a separately reported item on Schedule K-1, and it gets reported on Schedule B. Clearly any review of the return for accuracy would have been doomed to failure if looking for income in the wrong location on the tax return. The software did not make the error, the taxpayer did.

The IRS would definitely appeal this decision if it had any precedent value, or if the money involved was sufficient incentive. They are not going to waste their resources chasing less than $2,000 in penalties.

Yeah, I was confused with the Schedule E comment - completely wrong.

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But I will note that two tax years ago I found a bug in Tu

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About 15 years ago I found a bug while working on a friend's return. I was on the phone 90 minutes before someone at Intuit answered, and after all was said and done they agreed I found a bug. This was back in the days when long distance calls were expensive, I gave them my info, sent them a copy of the toll charges, and they reimbursed me for the call.