You could tell it wasn't a normal day as soon as you walked up to Building 2 at Intuit’s TurboTax headquarters in the Torrey Highlands neighborhood on Monday.
Music was in the air, and some people were dressed in costume. It had the distinct feeling of summer camp.
The summer camp theme really came to life inside, with lots of camp decor and more costumes, and hundreds of TurboTax employees on their laptops, taking chat questions.
“It’s all hands on deck with all of our employees. We’re trying to help people make it before the tax deadline and file their taxes," said Lisa Greene-Lewis, a CPA at TurboTax.
April 15 was not the deadline for San Diegans this year. The January flooding that impacted hundreds, if not thousands, of San Diego county residents, led the IRS and the state to extend the tax filing deadline to June 17.
But if you don’t have to wait to file, don’t, Greene-Lewis said, “because the average refund is close to $3,000."
TurboTax employees who are usually in their offices were on the cafeteria floor on Monday, helping answer simple questions.
For questions that weren't simple, they could turn to company experts, who were called — and dressed as —Camp Counselors on Monday.
“I can jump in and guide them whether they’re gonna need to go see an expert or whether there’s something I can answer really quickly and then whoever is on the chat can answer it and take another chat," said one of those experts, Lisa Skelly.
Skelly is a 20-year veteran of the company, ready to handle questions like how to deal with different IRS schedules or include an LLC on a tax return. "All of the weird stuff that comes out at the last minute," she said with a laugh, "that people go, 'Oh yeah, this is why I put this off, cause I didn’t want to have to deal with this!'"
For those who still need to do their taxes, Greene-Lewis advised having everything you need right in front of you before starting, like W-2s and 1099s.
If you’re itemizing, she said not to forget receipts that show expenses that are deductible. Greene-Lewis said more than 90% of people take the standard deduction, which is way up this year for all filers.
