TurboTax
TurboTax is Intuit's tax preparation software for macOS, used by millions of individual taxpayers and self-employed people in the United States to file federal and state income tax returns. The app guides users through tax scenarios, auto-fills information from W-2s and other documents, offers deductions and credits based on reported income, performs calculations, generates forms, and e-files returns directly to the IRS. Desktop versions (Basic, Deluxe, Premium) are available as direct downloads or via CD, and most editions integrate with financial institutions and accounting software. TurboTax is updated annually to reflect new tax laws.
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1 suggestionTurboTax Desktop for Mac remains Intel-only, even in the latest 2025 release — Intuit has not shipped a native Apple Silicon (Universal Binary) version despite having more than five years to do so since M1 Macs were first released. The app runs on Apple Silicon Macs today only because Rosetta 2 emulates the Intel code, but Apple is removing Rosetta 2 in macOS 28, scheduled for September 2028. Once that happens, TurboTax Desktop will stop launching on Apple Silicon Macs entirely. Intuit has been publicly silent about plans for a native build, and internal support information suggests the Desktop version may be discontinued for macOS at that point. You have roughly two years to plan an alternative. Consider filing your 2027 and 2028 taxes using TurboTax Online (web-based, no native/Intel distinction — it works in any browser on any Mac) rather than the Desktop app, or investigate other tax software vendors that have shipped native Apple Silicon builds — Quicken, which is now separate from Intuit, released a Universal Binary version years ago, and smaller competitors like TaxAct and FreeTaxUSA also support Mac natively. If you must continue using Desktop, the only workaround currently available is to run Windows TurboTax via virtualization (Parallels Desktop or similar), though that introduces additional cost and complexity.
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