TurboTax - Revision history

Thorsted: /* Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer) */

2026-03-28T04:06:38Z

‎Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer)

Kayvon2008 at 07:03, 17 November 2021

2021-11-17T07:03:35Z

Dan Tobias at 22:54, 29 March 2016

2016-03-29T22:54:12Z

Dan Tobias at 17:34, 1 March 2015

2015-03-01T17:34:53Z

Dan Tobias at 17:34, 1 March 2015

2015-03-01T17:34:15Z

Dan Tobias: /* Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer) */

2015-03-01T17:33:47Z

‎Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer)

Dan Tobias: /* Format for online version */

2015-03-01T17:32:54Z

‎Format for online version

Dan Tobias at 04:03, 24 March 2014

2014-03-24T04:03:15Z

Dan Tobias at 05:00, 8 February 2013

2013-02-08T05:00:03Z

Dan Tobias at 22:12, 3 February 2013

2013-02-03T22:12:46Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:06, 28 March 2026
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	The format appears to be a proprietary binary format, with the first four bytes spelling <code>TTFN</code> in ASCII (54 54 46 4E in hexadecimal), apparently the "signature bytes" indicating that a file is of a TurboTax format. (Ta Ta For Now? No, it probably stands for something like Turbo Tax Financial Network.)		The format appears to be a proprietary binary format, with the first four bytes spelling <code>TTFN</code> in ASCII (54 54 46 4E in hexadecimal), apparently the "signature bytes" indicating that a file is of a TurboTax format. (Ta Ta For Now? No, it probably stands for something like Turbo Tax Financial Network.)
		+
		+	- 1994 '''TAX''' <code>TurboTax Format=WIN Version=13</code><br>
		+	- 1995-99 '''TAX''' <code>C045015F</code><br>
		+	- 2000-03 '''TAX''' <code>C0450164</code><br>
		+	- 2004-07 '''TAX''' <code>5454464E</code><br>
		+	- 2008-13 '''TAXxxxx''' <code>5454464E</code><br>
		+	- 2014-?? '''TAXxxxx''' [[ZIP]] container

	== Format for online version ==		== Format for online version ==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{FormatInfo
 |subcat=Finance and Accounting
-|extensions={{ext|tax}}, {{ext|tax2011}}, {{ext|tax2012}}, {{ext|tax2014}}, etc.
+|extensions={{ext|tax}}, {{ext|tax2011}}, {{ext|tax2012}}, {{ext|tax2014}}, etc. [https://fileinfo.com/software/intuit/turbotax See More]
 }}
 '''TurboTax''' is a series of tax preparation programs by Intuit for the U.S. federal and state income tax.
-The government ensures continued employment for the producers of tax programs by changing the laws, regulations, and forms every year, necessitating corresponding changes to all the software. As a result, programs such as TurboTax use a different file format every year to correspond to the tax forms the data is intended to fill out.
+The government ensures continued employment for the producers of tax programs by changing the laws, regulations, and forms every year, necessitating corresponding changes to all the software. As a result, programs such as TurboTax use a different file format every year to correspond to the tax forms the data is intended to fill out. This results in a format nightmare.
 == Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer) ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:54, 29 March 2016
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	* [http://turbotax.intuit.com/ Official site]		* [http://turbotax.intuit.com/ Official site]
	* [http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Can-Not-Find-or-Access--Tax-File/Find-Your-Tax-File--Windows-/GEN12462.html Official documentation on finding and opening earlier years' tax files] (opening them requires obtaining the earlier TurboTax software)		* [http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Can-Not-Find-or-Access--Tax-File/Find-Your-Tax-File--Windows-/GEN12462.html Official documentation on finding and opening earlier years' tax files] (opening them requires obtaining the earlier TurboTax software)
		+
		+	[[Category:File formats with too many extensions]]

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 == Formats for TurboTax program (version you install on your computer) ==
-For a while, TurboTax used the <code>.tax<code> extension for its data, but eventually switched to a year-specific extension like <code>.tax2012</code>. Each year's program will only directly open that year's data, though they can import data from past years' returns where this is useful for carrying things over. (To this end, the program will generally recognize the last few years' formats for TurboTax, and even competing programs such as that of [[H&R Block]].)
+For a while, TurboTax used the <code>.tax</code> extension for its data, but eventually switched to a year-specific extension like <code>.tax2012</code>. Each year's program will only directly open that year's data, though they can import data from past years' returns where this is useful for carrying things over. (To this end, the program will generally recognize the last few years' formats for TurboTax, and even competing programs such as that of [[H&R Block]].)
 The format appears to be a proprietary binary format, with the first four bytes spelling <code>TTFN</code> in ASCII (54 54 46 4E in hexadecimal), apparently the "signature bytes" indicating that a file is of a TurboTax format. (Ta Ta For Now? No, it probably stands for something like Turbo Tax Financial Network.)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{FormatInfo
 |subcat=Finance and Accounting
-|extensions={{ext|tax}}, {{ext|tax2011}}, {{ext|tax2012}}, etc.
+|extensions={{ext|tax}}, {{ext|tax2011}}, {{ext|tax2012}}, {{ext|tax2014}}, etc.
 }}

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 == Format for online version ==
-Lately they are heavily promoting an online version of TurboTax which you complete through their secure website. There, the calculations are done "in the cloud", and your data is stored there, but at the end of the process you get a chance to download your return. The main downloads are in [[PDF]] form, showing the various tax forms and worksheets, but there is also a feature to download a file with a '''.tax''' extension that apparently contains the return in a format that can be imported back into TurboTax. This seems to be encoded binary data of some sort. One file of this sort has "PD94" in [[ASCII]] as its opening four bytes, but without further examples it is not possible to tell if this is true of all such files.
+Lately they are heavily promoting an online version of TurboTax which you complete through their secure website. There, the calculations are done "in the cloud", and your data is stored there, but at the end of the process you get a chance to download your return. The main downloads are in [[PDF]] form, showing the various tax forms and worksheets, but there is also a feature to download a file with a <code>.tax</code> extension that apparently contains the return in a format that can be imported back into TurboTax. This seems to be encoded binary data of some sort. One file of this sort has <code>PD94</code> in [[ASCII]] as its opening four bytes, but without further examples it is not possible to tell if this is true of all such files. The 2014 version still says that it's saving a ".tax file", but the actual file produced has a <code>.tax2014</code> extension and starts with <code>TTFN</code> like the desktop-version files.
 == Other notes ==

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 The government ensures continued employment for the producers of tax programs by changing the laws, regulations, and forms every year, necessitating corresponding changes to all the software. As a result, programs such as TurboTax use a different file format every year to correspond to the tax forms the data is intended to fill out.
 For a while, TurboTax used the '''.tax''' extension for its data, but eventually switched to a year-specific extension like '''.tax2012'''. Each year's program will only directly open that year's data, though they can import data from past years' returns where this is useful for carrying things over. (To this end, the program will generally recognize the last few years' formats for TurboTax, and even competing programs such as that of [[H&R Block]].)
 The format appears to be a proprietary binary format, with the first four bytes spelling "TTFN" in ASCII (54 54 46 4E in hexadecimal), apparently the "signature bytes" indicating that a file is of a TurboTax format. (Ta Ta For Now? No, it probably stands for something like Turbo Tax Financial Network.)
 There does not appear to be any documentation of the specifics of the file format online, though the fact that competing tax programs are able to import past returns in the format implies that their makers somehow managed to either obtain or reverse-engineer the format.

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 There does not appear to be any documentation of the specifics of the file format online, though the fact that competing tax programs are able to import past returns in the format implies that their makers somehow managed to either obtain or reverse-engineer the format.
 == Links ==
 * [http://turbotax.intuit.com/ Official site]
 * [http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Can-Not-Find-or-Access--Tax-File/Find-Your-Tax-File--Windows-/GEN12462.html Official documentation on finding and opening earlier years' tax files] (opening them requires obtaining the earlier TurboTax software)