Turbotax or Taxcut ??????

[Lakewood90712]

Both are about the same price ,* any advise* ?


John

[grumpy]

Been using TurboTax for about 10 years. See no reason to change. Does what I need with no muss, no fuss.

Grumpy

[haha]

I switched from Tax-Cut to Turbo-Tax 2 years ago. Either one is clunky, but Turbo-Tax overall seems better for my needs.

Ha

[Dawg52]

I've used both but have been using Taxcut the last couple of years. Will stick with it this year. Both perform about the same.*

[MJ]

I have only used TT and for the last 8 years. I have been very satisfied with it. Since my income will have flunctuated from last year to the next several years, it has helped me determine my approximate annual taxes.

MJ

[obryanjf]

I use TaxAct, it seems to do fine and is free for the basic no fuss version.

job

[. . . Yrs to Go]

I've used both over the years - switching from one to the other based on price. I can't recall any meaningful differences between the two. One thing to consider when shopping is the cost of "State Tax Modules". I have the great fortune of being required to file both NY and NJ state income taxes and often the difference in price between Turbo Tax and Tax Cut came down to how much the state tax packages cost. If both packages were priced identically I would probably go with the package I used the previous year to avoid any backward compatability issues when importing data.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Check with your broker or financial institution, they may give you one or the other for free or at a reduced cost. For example, vanguard gives me access to turbotax and turbotax state free of charge.

Whichever one you go for, look for the coupon deals with the office supply stores (staples, officemax, officedepot) on www.fatwallet.com/ You may get the tax s/w, quicken or money, and a bunch of other stuff either free after rebate or under ten bucks total.

http://www.fatwallet.com/c/18/

This is an example:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/mess...word1=turbotax

[work4beer]

I've used Turbo Tax for about 5 years. I tried TaxCut once when TurboTax was having DRM issues (2 years ago?) and didn't like it. Many things beyond the simple stuff, it doesn't seem to offer you much help, e.g. "enter your basis" instead of having you enter the purchase/sell dates & prices. Yes, I think I know how to do that myself, but the point of tax software is to catch me when I do it wrong, not to be an electronic form filler. I think the help for K-1 partnerships was much better in TurboTax as well.

Of course, Intuit is always trying to push the envelope in what they can do to tee you off or force you to upgrade to a pricer version, for example last year they moved the help for employee stock purchase plans to the Premier version, when it was always in Deluxe before. Fine, I'll do the math myself for $20, but given the prevelence of ESPP programs this should be in deluxe.

[Spanky]

I have been using Turbo Tax for last 6 years and intend to stay with it. I may consider switching if they go back to the copy protection a couple of years ago (2003?).

[Lanie]

When I started doing our taxes about three years ago I got both TT & TC (from friends) and did my prior year taxes on both just to see how they worked and how they compared to each other.* I like TT a lot better.* I felt the questions were better and the flow was easy.* *
I also found out that by having them done by someone else that I was shorted $400 in my refund and had to do an ammened return.

Quote:

did my prior year taxes on both

Did you get exactly the same bottom line with both?

[MasterBlaster]

Did you hear about the constipated tax accountant that tried to use TurboTax ?

Well he ended up working it out with a pencil and paper !

[Lanie]

Trombone
Same answers on both. I choose TT

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Someone did a review of a handful of tax packages a few years ago. Each came up with somewhat different numbers. IIRC the accountant they had review the results said that all were more or less correct depending on interpretations, how close you wanted to skid towards the edge of an audit, and how hard you were willing to argue your points.

Since at least the turbotax and taxcut people both warranty your return to be correct and at least claim they'll pay any associated fines...

[BUM]

Bottom Line... For the average return there isn't much difference. But if your return is complex or you have a 1120s to file then Turbo Tax is the way to go. They have more resources like their annual "Lassiter-like" help book. Kind of like "Taxes For Dummies" or maybe "Floyd R. Turbo Tax"

get it? Floyd R. Turbo Tax Never mind. Perhaps I've had too much coffee :P

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BUM get it? Floyd R. Turbo Tax Never mind. Perhaps I've had too much coffee :P

BUM, only us more "seasoned" forum participants remember Floyd from the Johnny Carson days.... 8)

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Johnny Who?

[indymom]

We used the Turbotax available thru the IRS website last year for free and it worked fine. Is that not available this year?

[wabmester]

I switched to TaxCut after Intuit pulled that copy protection stunt a few years ago.

I like TaxCut even better now.* *Why?* *Because it's free:

Download it here