I Compared 5 Expat Tax Software Tools to a Professional CPA — Here’s What I Found
As a CPA, I lose clients to DIY software every tax season. So I bought subscriptions to all five platforms and tested them against real expat scenarios. Here’s my honest, unsponsored verdict. Tested: TurboTax · MyExpatTaxes · OnlineTaxman · TFX · H&R Block Every tax season I lose a few clients to DIY software. They come back the following year having missed the Foreign Housing Exclusion, or having filed FEIE when FTC would have saved them $4,000, or — worst case — having filed incorrectly and now facing IRS scrutiny. I don’t blame them. Software is cheaper upfront, available at midnight, and doesn’t require scheduling a call. So I decided to actually test these tools properly: I bought full subscriptions to five expat tax platforms, ran them through four real-world scenarios, and documented exactly where each one succeeds and fails. This is not a sponsored review. No platform knew I was testing them. Methodology: How I Te...