Turbotax live countdown

Tax season is almost upon us. Technically it’s 90 days away, but who’s counting?

I am. I am counting.

As someone who recently started their own business and has scrambled to get their books together towards the end of last year, I am painfully aware, but not excited about what’s to come in 2025 for taxes. I live in California, so taxes are particularly brutal.

I have a rough approximation of what I’ll owe and have been setting aside cash for this purpose, but that doesn’t make it more fun to pay the government for the luxury of living in a state.

This got me thinking about platforms like TurboTax which, while predatory, have a lot of inherent value. What if there was a feature in TurboTax where you could see a real-time indicator of your tax bill that increases as you run out of time?

This would be both anxiety-inducing and motivating, depending on what incentivizes you. I don’t think many people would appreciate this functionality, though I see it’s utility as someone working to calculate their tax bill.

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