[Macworld]

Post your comments for Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block TaxCut for Mac here

[jrandersoniii]

Hmmm, very timely. Maybe this would have been more helpful to some a month or two ago. And who says the print or traditional media is withering on the vine ;)

[macFanDave]

>> Desktop tax-preparation programs

What is this Desktop Tax? Just because laptops are taking over, does that mean that they can milk those of us in the minority? I'll pay my sales tax, but I'm not paying no effing Desktop Tax on top of that!

It's discrimination, I tell you. Discrimination!

[Philip Michaels]

jrandersoniii said:

Hmmm, very timely. Maybe this would have been more helpful to some a month or two ago. And who says the print or traditional media is withering on the vine ;)

Well, with a lot of tax information -- w-2s, 1099s, and whatnot -- not really available until the end of January, we're kind of precluded from doing a review until February if we want to recreate an accurate tax-filing experience for the purposes of a review. I'd also wager that folks looking for advice on tax-preparation software are probably not among the early birds when it comes to filing.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this review is probably valuable to some readers out there, even if it's not valuable to you.

[Plan_K]

Been a Turbo Tax user for 10 years or more. I found this year's version harder to use. It failed to guide me through the interviewing process, as it had in the past. Fortunately, I was familiar with the format and my taxes were not too complicated, so I was able to jump around where I needed to go.
Also, I'm not clear on the advantages of being an auto-renewing customer. I've auto-renewed with Intuit for several years and find that by doing so, I get the privilege of paying more for the software than I could get it almost anywhere else.
Having said that, I'd still recommend TurboTax.

[Terrin]

Personally, I find this view unhelpful. Sure, there is some useful information about both TurboTax and TaxCut. However, it would be more helpful to compare these two leading software packages to lessor know offerings. I have used both Turbo Tax and Tax Cut. Both work well, but Tax Cut's Mac support has been sporadic. Further, both companies cost more then three times as much to use as just as capable offerings from Tax Act. Worst, Intuit ups it's pricing every year when every year it doesn't do anything more then it did the year before. I can file with Tax Act using the most expensive package for under twenty dollars. Moreover, this year when I prepared my returns using both Turbo Tax and Tax Act I got a slightly bigger return using Tax Act. Accordingly, I filed using Tax Act. Feeding the coffers of H & R Block and Intuit serves no purpose if there are just as capable but cheaper options.

[ShagFinger]

I think you also failed to mention there is a totally FREE version of TaxCut right on the H&R Block website. If you have some more "advanced" needs like I did where as I needed to enter income from a 1099-MISC, I had to pay a whopping $14.95 at the end of the filing. Saved me the $200 I had been paying my accountant for the last few years AND I got a much higher refund!
Turbo Tax lost me as a customer after 2003, they had changed the interface and interview so much and made it so difficult that you pretty much had to be a tax accountant just to use it, that when I was done I said enough and stated using an accountant.
When a friend told me about the free online version I thought that it might be time to check out doing it myself again and even after having the pay the $15 for the upgrade I am definitely sold on TaxCut online. It was very intuitive and painless to use. I will certainly use it again next year.

[Philip Michaels]

ShagFinger said:

I think you also failed to mention there is a totally FREE version of TaxCut right on the H&R Block website.

True, though we will be reviewing online options later this week.

[ShagFinger]

LOL right after you have driven everyone to the $100 version first though.... :)

[jragosta]

True - TurboTax is better than TaxCut. HOWEVER, I refuse to use it. I'm tired of Intuit's crappy software and even worse support.
For example:
Quicken Mac STILL doesn't do stock options - even though the Windows version has had them for a decade.
Quickbooks Mac STILL won't network with a Quickbooks network, so you can't use a Mac as a client for a business network.
Even if you want to manually transfer data files between Windows Quickbooks and Mac Quickbooks, the file formats are incompatible and you have to go through multiple extra steps.
No Quickbooks Point of Sale for Mac (although, as bad as Point of Sale is, that's probably an advantage)
Point of Sale has at least 6 different reports for monthly sales results. Every one gives you a different result. WTF?
Point of Sale wouldn't run on Vista and calls to tech support got me a series of mindless drones who couldn't suggest anything but uninstalling and reinstalling both POS (appropriately named) and Windows. After I had reinstalled both of them 4 times on Intuit's request, I gave up and fixed the problem on my own (POS 7.0.3 was incompatible with the version of .NET that came with my version of Vista).
Moving a data file from one server to another requires you to uninstall and reinstall POS on all the client computers according to Intuit.
Intuit will not see one more cent from me until I see evidence that they've hired some programmers who know more than the average 3rd grader.

[palane]

jragosta - Though reasonable points, this is a review of TAX software, not Intuit. Mind you, I gave up on Intuit when Quicken took down my system. (Details fuzzy, but basically a slightly older version of the software stopped working after I updated 10.2. It would only work if I booted into classic mode and a date problem killed the installation. Got it working, but went back to my custom Excel spreadsheet).
BB
P.S. Loved MacFanDave's comment! Makes me think of the captain from Wall-E (Mutiny! Mutiny!)

[LeeMac]

I once used TaxCut. They cut off support for Mac a few years back, so I was forced to switch to TurboTax. H&R Block can go to HELL. Intuit stayed with the Mac OS when H&R Block "cut and run". Until TurboTax really pisses me off, I'm staying with them. Right now, TurboTax is doing just fine.

[jragosta]

" this is a review of TAX software, not Intuit."

How do you separate the two? For years, Intuit has shown great disdain for Mac users for the reasons listed above and more. Recently, they're showing disdain even for their Windows users (reasons again given above).

If I buy a software program, I expect to be able to trust it and the vendor. For a math program, I expect to be able to rely on the results. If there's a problem, I expect to be able to get support that actually helps solve a problem. I don't feel that Intuit meets any of those requirements, so I will not use their tax software for that reason. After all, I have no intention of going to jail because Intuit can't figure out how to write a program that gets consistent results and works properly.