I have been using this product and its previous version Kiplinger's Tax Cut for over 20 years and it has worked perfectly every year. No plans to change. I like the way that it imports my personal data from the previous year when I start a new tax year.
Automatically populates with last year's backgroun
on October 15, 2018
Posted by: Mattnip
from Fairfax, VA
I had several problems with this year's edition, self employment material was dropped after I finished it. There was a "0" income reported in the dividend sheet for 2 funds that gave me capital gains, causing some needless worries. I had to file very late due to some serious surgery and the aggravation added by these occurrences was unwelcome
Pros: Easy to install, Maximizes refund, Easy to import
Cons: Time consuming, Hard to fix issues, Hard to prepare
I loved a new feature that I finally tried this year of downloading my 1099's from my stock brokers . Really slick and not that hard to learn and do . One problem I had that I do not ever remember having before was in entering a 1099 misc from my former employer that I retire from for imputed income on a benefit of legal service .I had a heck of a time finding the right boxes to select so the program would do the right thing .I kept running into a problem where the program wanted to treat it as business income and make me file Sch C . WRONG !!!!!!
Pros: Easy to install, Easy to prepare, Easy to import
It is a great software for simple returns. If you have complicated situations, either you need to be very knowledgeable or better off going to a professional in person.
I've used the fed and state software for about a decade. It's been gradually improved, particularly in the coordination of fed and state info, to the point where for simpler returns it's faultless. For more complicated cases (K1s, trusts, partnerships, non-resident), it's vastly better, but you still need to check that the info from the fed is correctly entered in the state (the worksheet info is sometimes duplicated). But verifying and fixing an occasional double entry is far better than attempting to locate and populate all the specific forms/worksheets manually.
This is really good software. The only complaint I have is about the help system. Among the many help nits, it shows in the upper left, that the last entry had a decrease of $XX. Beside it is a View Details link. You would think details about the decrease or increase, right... not even. And it is like this in many parts of the program. I needed help on a particular form, so I clicked the link, and it said something __like__ this is where your form xxxx would go and nothing about what the form was for. I had to go Google it and got conflicting results.
Pros: Easy to install, Easy to prepare, Easy to import