Mac users wanting to save a PDF of their TurboTax return or print to file, are forced to upload their data to Intuit via a silent connection. The Mac TurboTax license says, “You may save your return as a PDF file and understand it may be processed on Intuit servers, not as part of the Software.”
In a February 19 Wall Street Journal article, Intuit blames Apple: According to Julie Miller, an Intuit spokeswoman, TurboTax made the change “because the Mac product requires a special, third-party code library to support offline printing….based on Apple App Store guidelines, we could no longer distribute the third-party library with our software.”
Hopefully, Intuit will write their own printing library next year if enough people complain. There are solutions for those who don’t trust a third party with their data and want to print offline. TurboTax for Windows and Mac software from H&R Block haven’t been programmed with this limitation. Alternatively, one can download and print official IRS PDF forms and hand-write the data TurboTax has calculated.
Additionally, when first saving the TurboTax data file, an option is given to “Save without a password” or “Encrypt and password protect.” Choosing encryption requires an Internet connection to Intuit for processing the encryption and future decryption. A better choice is to save without a password, and save the data file to an encrypted DMG created with Apple Disk Utility.
