http://www.thevillagescomputerclub.com/schedules.htm

Thought this might be of interest to TOTVers? The subject of the February 29, 2008 meeting of the Villages Computer Club is Tax Preparation Software.

[zcaveman]

Basically you have two choices - TaxCut by H&R Block or Turbotax by Inuit. There are flavors that are geared to your tax requirements. All you need to do is look at the back of the two boxes in the store to see which is best for you. Since I live in Florida and do not have any state taxes or any complications, the basic is better for me. If you look at the TaxCut basic vs the TurboTax basic you will see that TaxCut delivers much more for the price.

Remember that with any these packages you still have to gather all of your data.

I used TurboTax for years but switched to TaxCut - which imported my TurboTax data. I am very happy with the results.

[golfnut]

z, I've used TurboTax for years, why did you switch to TaxCut?

[zcaveman]

After my state tax duty to New Jersey was done, I still used TurboTax. Then TurboTax tried the DRM road where you could only install one full copy on a PC and a watered down backup copy on the other PCS. That year I went to TaxCut. The next year TurboTax rescinded the DRM process but left a bad taste in my mouth.

In 2005, TaxCut sent me a free copy of their basic program. Last year, TaxCut had a free download of the Basic copy on the internet. This year both TaxCut and TurboTax offered a free basic on the internet. I do not like to put all of my personal on the internet so I went down to Wal-Mart to buy one or the other. TaxCut offered more options with the Premium Federal at $16 than TurboTax offered with their "Deluxe package at $29.

I am not sure you know but TurboTax is from Intuit which also has Quicken. This year Quicken dropped their basic package and are pushing the Deluxe package at $59 with a $30 mail-in discount. They are getting to be the Norton of the finance world.

One of the reasons I did buy Turbotax was for the "free" Basic Quicken after rebates. This year the free Quicken is a "starter" package.

I have not had a problem with TaxCut. As I mentioned in my last post, it will recognize the data from TurboTax and import it into the program. The touch and feel is basically the same. They also have the electronic filing process.

Also, I had less problems downloading the updates to TaxCut than I had with Turbotax.

[Bernie]

Zcaveman
Thanks for sharing your Taxcut and Turbotax comparison and experience. I too am getting a bad taste from Turbotax after more than 10 years. I liked Turbotax because of Quicken and was afraid Turbotax would not import my last year data so I stuck with the Turbotax. I just might switch this year. I think Turbotax is getting out of hand price wise. How can they justify such a large increase the last few years?

[zcaveman]

It is lack of real competition. Putting these programs together with all of the tax laws is not an easy task. You have to admire what they do. You would think that with the number of PCs out there that they would do a volume business.

However, there are a lot of online sites that say that will do your taxes if you don't mind putting your data on the internet plus yhe IRS will do it if your income is less than a certain level.

I guess I am just thankful that TaxCut is a competitor.