Divided Household - Working Out A Serious Problem
Posted on January 23, 2007 by Him and tagged humor, software, taxes
When I first met Her, we both used the 1040-EZ form to do our taxes. We didn't make a lot of money, so that was the easy way.
Then we started to make a little more money. Taxes were becoming...computerized. Since at that point in our lives we weren't ready to combine our finances, we diverged when it came to picking which tax software we used.
She picked Turbo Tax.
I picked Tax Cut.
For years we did our taxes as separate entities, not foreseeing the impossibly great implications this may have meant down the road.
Yes, Turbo Tax is looks more polished, but in the past there were reports that there was spyware attached to the program. Tax Cut does look like a Windows 95 program, and is sponsored by H&R Block, a company that we would never want anything to do with.
Someone please explain to me: Why is Turbo Tax Federal + State
Please help is in our time of need. We need to pick one tax program. For the sake of our relationship.
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TaxCut online! It's the best and I can access prior year returns from any computer with internet access (which has come in quite handy - especially when my old computer died).
Do you still have to pay to e-file on top of the cost of the sofware? I've been using Turbo Tax Online for the past three years and I love it. I'm sure Tax Act is good as well, but I'm not sure what the differences are between the online and boxed versions. I had a 25% discount on my federal filing (details on my blog) and paid just under $50 to file and use the software. It was also the "Deluxe Edition w/ Deduction Maximizer".
Only my opinion-
Turbo Tax is a smooth running machine. Especially if you use Quicken or Quickbooks. Both accounting softwares feed into it without glitches.
Turbo is also full of accessible and linkable information. The more complicated your return the more questions you may have. For me it is nice to know the answers are there without having to always dig out my RIA Federal Tax Handbook.
I would never feel comfortable saving my return online. We have all witnessed in the past the major corps, like ABN Amro who have lost and jeopardized our private information. I believe that the online service and storage is more risky and with larger liabilities.
Turbo Tax also is an easy flow to save all your returns to PDF files. And make Saving of prior years a breeze on CD's. Although, I do recommend keeping 2 disks.
Like the world at large, I have many opinions. Non of which should matter to you. Your decision should be based on your and your gals comfort. Comfort = Success!
John | Jan 24, 2007
I use TaxAct myself, after finding Turbo Tax to be one giant commercial (from a GREEEDY money grubbing company) and Tax Cut to be primitive and unhelpful. Tax Cut also got sued over their integrated investment account that actually cost people more money in fees than it paid out in interest.
TaxAct is pretty easy to use and has built in reference documents (better help than Tax Cut for sure).
TaxAct is cheap online, but I won't store my tax records in cyberspace, so I pay $20 for the downloaded version plus $7 for CA state filing.
TaxAct is flying under the radar but pretty solid and well established.
Catherine | Jan 24, 2007
If either of you is a State Farm customer you can get Turbo Tax for free. Just a thought. Free is free. Money grubbing coporation or not
I think TurboTax comes with software that stops you from copying their CD, but it does so by disabling your CDRW drives and monitoring them, or something like that. TurboTax also requires activation. Intuit (the company behind TurboTax) says that they don't actually gather any personally identifiable data, and of course there's an uninstaller for when tax season is over. But I don't love the idea of an extra program running on my computer for no good reason.
Anyhows, what we do is buy whichever one is cheaper cos every penny I spend is cutting into my (haha) refund. So usually TaxCut (cos TurboTax is the brand name with the nicer interface I guess). A lot of times if you pay attention to the store ads you can get TaxCut+Microsoft Money+a couple of random things for a pretty low price, if you don't mind rebates.
Since you guys usually buy both, have you tried entering the same data into both programs and seeing which one comes up with the better numbers? If it's the same, then for sure go with the cheaper software. :)
Amy | Jan 26, 2007
I have used both programs in the past, and I greatly prefer Turbo Tax. It had a more self-explanatory interface, and when I tried both, Turbo Tax also gave me a greater refund calculation. It also accepted the upload of my Tax Cut file into the system, so I did not have to re-enter my previous year's data.
liz | Jan 26, 2007
I used TaxCut maybe three years ago and it deducted my and my husband's IRA contributions even though our income was too high to deduct them. I would never use it again. The IRS billed us for the taxes owed plus hefty interest and penalties. I now use TurboTax, which I had used for several years before using TaxCut. I bought TaxCut that year to save a little money, which totally backfired on me.
Tax Act is free - you do pay more for the "deluxe" version and for your state if that's how you want to go - but I like me some free stuff. :) It's worked great, we've never had a problem - going on 5 years with this program. www.taxact.com . Good luck! :)
I have used Tax Act for the past 2 years with no trouble all all. Your taxes may already be done by now, but give it a consideration next year. I found it last year through a link on the IRS website. They have a free verison and 2 different deluxe versions that run 10 and 20 bucks.
Raoul | Feb 19, 2007
Go with Turbo Tax, it is much easier to understand. Reduce your taxes by increasing contributions to deductible IRA's and or 401(k)'s. The best tax planning around. Use Turbo Tax to develop your planning.....
King of Debt | Jan 23, 2007
Turbo tax, all the way. I have used it for a few years now and it's been really easy to manage the Queen and I's taxes with it. As for spyware, I have never seen anything like that.
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