H&R Block Premium software is the easiest way for a sole proprietor business owner to file their taxes online. It’s a simple question and answer format, which you click through to the end. If for some reason you need to stop or pause in the middle, you can save it and come back later. There are help menus and links to the IRS, in the program. You only need to fill in your information once for both federal & state, because it flows through from the federal to state, though you need to go through the state part to make sure everything has been included, as sometimes states give credits that the feds don’t. Once e-filed, you get a quick response back as whether your return has been accepted or not. If not, you’ll be told what’s wrong, so it can be fixed and resent.
Pros: Easy to prepare, Maximizes refund, Easy to import documents, Fast
We used this software for several years now. The interview process is pretty thorough and easy to understand. It serves us well for what we need currently.
The software is easy to use. I had ongoing problems with the internet connection. When clicking on "Learn More" or trying to file electronically I got messages that I was not connected to the internet, even though I was able to connect to other websites.
Works fine for a basic return. I would like more links to actual IRS publications instead of simply imstructions to go look at the publication. I would also like the numbers to carry over from the previous year. For example, it will show the bank for my mortgage, but not the numbers entered last year. Instead, I need to keep previous year's return open to refer to numbers from last year. This year specifically, I encountered technical issues with importing from my previous year's return. The tax file would not import, nor would the PDF export from the previous year. I may try another tax program next year.
Not as helpful for selling rental property. I had to do a lot of research in order to figure out how to fill in forms properly. Not very good guidance within TaxCut software.
I'm going back to turbo tax next year. There were several errors that I had to manually correct to make my return correct. It couldn't even correctly calculate whether filing jointly or separately was better, it kept wanting to put some of my info under my wife's name even after I went back and verified that it was listed as my information.
Pros: Easy to import documents
Cons: Time consuming, Doesn't maximize refund, Hard to prepare