Transitioning from CPAs to TurboTax

Have the CPA give you all supporting worksheets and supplemental schedules for the previous year's return.   You may need to pay a fee, but having a complete tax file is necessary.   Any carryover amounts and depreciation information are essential.  

You might want to prepare a previous year return (that matches the last return filed by your CPA) in TurboTax so you have a complete tax file to transfer in the year you wish to start preparing your own return(s).   

Transferring in previous year's data:

TurboTax can save your tax return as a tax data file (also called a tax file, data file, or a .tax file) and as a Portable Document Format (PDF).

• Your tax data file can be opened, read, and edited in TurboTax.
• Your PDF is a noneditable "snapshot" of your tax return that can be opened, read, and printed in a PDF viewer program.

TurboTax can only import basic info like name and address from a PDF.  Everything else needs to be entered manually if you do not have a tax data file.    Tax Data File vs PDF

Video - Transferring last year's info

See TurboTax Online vs Desktop from Getting Started with TurboTax