Increase in tax cycle fee

Theirs’s an increase in Tax Cycle Advance purchase fee apparently without providing any added features. This is not fair in such a business situation especially small office. Would request Tax Cycle to review the price.

1 Like

Agreed. Although I kind of expected it as soon as they announced they were bought by Xero. I have also experienced a decline in support. I was having an issue that I figured I would deal with after tax season because I didn’t have the time. And I figured they would be bombarded with questions during tax season as well so maybe they would be willing to spend a little bit more time with me after tax season sorting it out. It was just dismissed with no help. I guess they also cut staff hours after tax season. I certainly got much better service in prior years.

Hi everyone. Just to give some context…

We have held our prices for several years (last change was 2019) to give our customers a reprieve during the pandemic; however, there are now a number of contributing factors that meant we have reset our pricing for this year.

Over the past few years, we’ve added new features, electronic filing and tax modules to TaxCycle. We are also experiencing the operating environment and inflation pressures that many other businesses face so even though we’ve been able to keep the prices the same over the past couple of years, we do need to raise them this year.

We feel this is fair and reasonable based on market conditions and the value we are offering our customers. Thank you for continuing to support us!

4 Likes

Nothing has changed about our support this year, we extend the hours during tax season and then revert to regular hours in May. The staffing levels are the same as they have always been.

@Luca I’m really sorry that your experience wasn’t a positive one. If you drop me a line about the issue you’re having, I’ll see what I can do to help.

1 Like

i have only positive things to say about Taxcycle and their team. Their support continues to be the best I experience anywhere.
Their pricing has always been more than competitive and their products continue to expand their utility as they keep pace with opportunities created in operating systems.
Neal Nicholson

From “Luca via protaxcommunity.com” <notifications@taxcycle.discoursemail.com>
To neal@nealnicholson.ca
Date 2022-06-07 9:27:28 AM
Subject [protaxcommunity.com] Increase in tax cycle fee

4 Likes

Given the increase with inflation and market costs, the increase in taxcycle is quite reasonable when you compare it with the competitors’ pricing. It is far superior and they have excellent customer service. Nothing has changed there.

4 Likes

All true, but for a sole practitioner working in semi-retirement there is no discount, no relief…yet our workloads remain dependent on using appropriate software. It’s still the best…but when operating on a reduced basis there is also a limited budget. As my volumes drop (T1s are mostly friends and family…ugh!) and the T2s slowly dissipate, it’s a concern.

At some point you need to charge family and friends to recover your costs, use the cheaper DIY software so there’s less to recover, or retire and leave family and friends to find another solution.

TaxCycle charges a competitve rate for professional software. Professionals should know when they need to hike their rates, or when they to close the door.

6 Likes

Normally the cost involves raw material, processing & operating cost, transportation & labor however here everything is virtual & no extra features allowed with additional charge. I am satisfied with customer service mostly (with some exception) however the price increase is not justified.

@IMA … Frustration regarding the rising prices of virtually all goods and services that we consume should really be directed toward the underlying source of the inflation; our government, the fractional reserve and central banking system. Rising prices, including perhaps the cost of our tax preparation software are merely just a symptom of the underlying issue.

While we like to blame greedy corporations or big oil companies for rising prices the fact of the matter is all inflation is the result of government policy… printing and increasing the supply of money in circulation without a corresponding increase in the supply of goods and services (neither of which government produce or have control over). Central banks and governments are perceived by the public as inflation fighters… yet they were the sole creators of the inflation in the first place.

While we all enjoy the early effects of the inflation cycle (rising asset prices) … eventually ALL inflation ends up settling in the price of goods and services. Surely we must have known the effects of all these government handouts and Covid subsidies were going to eventually show up in consumer prices. Inflation isn’t just a Canada problem… printing and handing out money to people to stay home and do nothing happened on a global scale.

I don’t think we are anywhere close to being able to putting a lid on inflation. Suppliers of our goods and services will need to continue to raise their prices to pay their rising costs… including their own staff… who’s salaries can’t purchase anywhere near what they could a year ago.

Some of you have seen this already, but here is a quote from one of my favourite books on inflation;

Everyone loves an early inflation. The effects at the beginning of inflation are all good. There is steepened money expansion, rising government spending, increased government budget deficits, booming stock markets, and spectacular general prosperity, all in the midst of temporarily stable prices.

Everyone benefits, and no one pays. That is the early part of the cycle.

Later on in the cycle, the effects are all bad. The government may steadily increase the money inflation in order to stave off the latter effects, but the latter effects patiently wait. In the terminal inflation, there is faltering prosperity, tightness of money, falling stock markets, rising taxes, and still rising government deficits, but now accompanied by soaring prices and the ineffectiveness of all traditional remedies.

Everyone pays, and one benefits. This is the full cycle of every inflation.

2 Likes

Pandemics and inflation affect everyone. To help my customer, I didn’t increase any prices this year. The price increase is acceptable, but 12% is too high. Tax Cycle should increase it slowly, a little bit at a time, instead of 12%.

I echo the thoughts above, as my one-man-show price has gone up almost 12%.

Having suffered through the 1995 CanTax debacle season and the Greenpoint transition to Intuit, I’m getting a real sense of deja vu here…

TaxCycle is an amazing product, created and supported by amazing people, but based on my 35+ years of experience in this business, these corporate takeovers ALWAYS lead to corruption of the product – and increase in price.

1 Like

I presume that those of us who are criticizing price increase have not raised their prices in the last few years.

1 Like

My base rate hasn’t changed since 2016. Until a boutique firm opened, I had the highest base rate in our small community.

Here we are talking about two different elements of pricing. One is Product & other Clients. Clients have every option to go anywhere for the service which may satisfy his/her preference & price almost without sacrificing anything. In the case of product, since we use a unique product, so we don’t have a choice to shop around as everyone know the cost of switching. Therefore its irreverent to to compare increase/decrease base price for the service as compared to product price.

mike, what happened in 1995 to make a “Cantax debacle”?

SmallBizGuy - i am a sole practitioner working in semi retirement but i also work part time for a company. For that company, the price of a return hasn’t gone up since 2017.For my personal business, i really thing the cost of T1 going up $50 is quite reasonable. It is the best software out there and most affordable.

@Elizabeth In the past, there usually is a date for the expiry of the discounted price.

This year, there is nothing letting us know how long this sale price will continue.

Could someone let us know? Please and Thank you

Are you kidding??? Do you not think that professional programmers time isn’t worth something and that costs for that time might increase from year to year? Also, Cameron and his team are pretty much GODS of programming when you compare their work to lots of crap programming out there these days. It is astounding how they can get this product out there every year with really so FEW bugs and if there are problems how quickly they are fixed.

2 Likes

Have I missed the boat? I haven’t received my renewal notification yet. Just finished paying the 2021 renewal. When I checked my account, I have no active licenses. Feeling a bit nervous right now.