Tax Software (TT vs. TC) (1 Viewer)

[Dan M~]

I've been using Turbo Tax for about 6 years. Last year Turbo Tax loaded alot of junk, spyware on my machine, so this year I may consider Tax Cut.

My ?'s,

Has Turbo Tax cleaned up their act this year??

Does Tax Cut import previous years data from Turbo Tax?

What do you recommend?

Thanks for the guidance.

 

[Jim Tressler]

Dan,

I am in the same boat as you.. From what I have seen - TT got rid of the crap (including that damn activation), but they still try to get you yo buy all kinds of their products while going through your return. I went to TC website and they state that they can import TT data - A friend of mine that does taxes on the side says last years version of TC imported TT data with no problems - so I would imagine this years is ok as well. Also for what it is worth he recomends TC over TT. Hope that helps.

jim

 

[Mike Voigt]

For those reasons - spyware, etc. - I ended up using TaxCut last year, despite being a long-time (10+ years) user of TurboTax.

If TurboTax/Intuit indeed cleaned up their act, then I may reconsider going back to them. But I have to say tha TaxCut was very straightforward to use, just about as easy as TurboTax.

 

[Brett_H]

Dan,

Thanks for asking this question, it's one I've been meaning to post for some time. If you don't mind, I'd like to pigyback on this thread with a few ?'s of my own:

I used TurboTax online two years ago and liked it, but my life was much simpler then (single, renting an apartment, etc). Now I'm married and we bought a house in April of this year, which will complicate things a bit. We went to an accountant last year who did an average job I guess, but we got RAPED since we'd just gotten married in 10/02, and it didn't feel any better to shell out $$ to some guy only to have him tell you to bend over... but I digress.

A few other random questions: can any of these packages play around too see if filing jointly/separately would be best, and if you should file separately can they do that or do you need to pay for the software twice to file separate returns?

Thanks!
-Brett.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Just to add to the original question: I also moved away from Turbo Tax due to the spyware/etc/crap, and used Taxcut last year, and had no problem importing my previous returns from Turbo Tax, so I may just stick with Taxcut unless they didn't learn from Turbo Tax's mistakes last year and also get into the spyware/burner-disabling game.

 

[Mike LS]

Brett,

TT is very easy to figure your return different ways. As for you now being married and having a mortgage....that really doesn't make things any more difficult. If you've used TT before and are comfortable doing your own return, it doesn't make much sense to pay an accountant to do it for you.

I even figure my wife's small business on our return and it's really not that complex at all. My return has gone from about 4 pages to about 20 in the last couple of years, but all the data entry is very straightforward.

 

[Brett_H]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I wonder if TC lets you play around with filings in the same manner? The only reason is that TC often comes with a rebate for MS money, which I use instead of Quicken.

Thanks,
-Brett.

 

[Chris Hovanic]

I too switched to TC last year. Imported my TT info and was very easy to use and quite a bit less expensive than TT.

I dont recall if it is able to show you the diff. by filing different ways. I would think it does.

 

[Brett_H]

One thing I found... according to this page TurboTax is doing away with all the "activation" software they had last year:


So, score one for TT this year.

-Brett.

 

[Dan M~]

Thank you all for your help!

I may give TT another chance.

To answer other questions, yes you can easily make changes to in TT (and I assume TC) to try various scenerios (Married filing jointly, married filing separate, etc.) Also I have used TT through many life changes (Job changes, marriage, new dependents, buying and selling of homes, etc) and it just gets easier as my life gets more complicated! TT will look at what you did in previous years and ask you appropriate questions... (i.e. losses on stock sales that can be written off in following years).

I highly recommend a tax software even if you have a pro do your taxes... I know of people that checked their paid tax accountant using TT and have found some errors (different ways of accounting?)in the pros work.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Rob Landolfi]

Mike,

I think I could be in the position of having to do this for next year (Tax Year '04). For your situtation, did the interview catch this for you, or did you have to actively search for how to do this in the help menus? My wife is getting into a small, home-based business of her own, and I haven't had the time to go into my old program and look through their help section yet.

I've been a satisfied user of TaxCut since '97, and it will let you try different scenarios (married filing jointly/single) to see what works best for your situation. From memory, I think it does the married single/joint calculations without prompting and tells you how much you saved by doing one vs the other, including a summary screen shot of where the numbers came from.

My only difficulty has been with state taxes due to my being in the military, and this is not the program's fault. If you have a working spouse and you're not a resident of the state where you're stationed, you (may) have to override many of the federal income entries in the state return. If you're not claiming the same income for both federal and state returns you may have to do some manual calculations, and will have to mail in the return. No problem, and it's nice having all the forms and info handy as the State program can be usually had for free after buying the "Deluxe" version.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Just chiming in with details on deals for Taxcut for this week:

If you like Taxcut tax prep software, I think this is a pretty good deal:

Staples has a package of software in this week's ad:

Taxcut Deluxe
MS Money 2004
H&R Deduction Pro
Taxcut State
eFiling

All for $19.99 after tax and MIR. The eFiling is worth $15, so I thought it was a good deal.

----------

Circuit City is offering Taxcut Deluxe and MS Money 2004 for Free after MIR (but you'll still need to buy Taxcut State and pay for eFiling).

 

[Ted Todorov]

I moved to TaxCut from TurboTax (formerly MacinTax) two years ago because they didn't support Mac OS X and TaxCut did. I am happy with TaxCut -- its user interface is on the ugly side, but I have never had any problems with it, and I had numerous problems with MacInTax messing up my NY State return. I will be sticking with TaxCut from now on.

Ted

 

[Brett_H]

Patrick,



I just picked this up yesterday, and it seemed like the best deal going. There's actually rebates in the TaxCut deluxe box for free state and e-filing as well, so after MIRs you should be able to get
TaxCut Deluxe (federal)
TaxCut State
e-filing
H&R Block DeductionPro
Money 2004 *Deluxe* (most other places only have standard)

Go
here for further details and links.

I skipped the "DeductionPro" because it didn't apply to me. My out the door cost for everything else (TC Fed & State, Money 2004) was around $85 with tax. All the needed rebate forms are in the TaxCut box, so hopefully it will all work when I send it in!

-Brett.

 

[Patrick Sun]

After I posted my initial post, I also found out the details from the Circuit City deal and bought all of the Taxcut(fed/state)/Money2004 software that was free after rebate. I also skipped Deduction Pro.

 

[Paul_Fisher]

Thanks for the deals guys, I'll be running to CC later today.

 

[Brett_H]

Paul,

You'd be well advised to call or check their web site first (you can sort of confirm stock if a store is listed as being able to have in-store pickup) because mine only had a few MS Moneys left yesterday afternoon, which they just got in the night before.

-Brett.

 

[Dave E H]

I was a long-time Turbo Tax user until last year's C-dilla fiasco. I boycotted them and went to Taxcut. It worked out well for me - very easy to use and the import was so straight forward.

Even though the boycott worked of turbo tax (they took all the stuff out in this year's edition) I'd go with Taxcut this year. As it stands, I'm going to go the accountant route as my taxes are rather complx this year.

 

[BrettB]

I've never used tax prep. software but I'm ready to try. Is everyone still recommending TaxCut? This years TurboTax was getting hammered over at Amazon.

 

[Nathan_F]

I switched from TT to TC in the big activation scandal a couple of years back. I've been happy with TC ever since.