Am I breaking up with UltraTax?
This story originates from a series of LinkedIn posts and Taxpros Discord rants that started around April 22.
I'm at the end of my 3-year introductory contract with Thomson Reuters' UltraTax*, and it's getting ugly.
Everyone in our industry knows they hit hard on the fees afterward. But you don't get to know how hard they will hit you until they are swinging.
My contract was for 10 "states"** plus Planner CS. Total cost was $8,396, plus $912 of per-return-pricing (PRP) fees for states outside my package.
As of April 22, their online renewal system was quoting $17,933 after a heavy discount. That's a 113.6% increase in price! And I would have the same PRP fees again. This is for a single-user license hosted locally.
Tax software is big and complicated, and switching is hard (if not impossible). It makes you wonder how much they're cashing in on that assumption.
*I was actually originally on an "Express 100" contract that was supposed to be 100 returns, and then PRP fees afterward. In my first year, I did 132 returns. They didn't charge me PRP fees and kicked me off that package instead.
**Oregon's copious income tax filings used 6-8 of them because just about every return type is a different "state."
