"Is it good for you?", Tax Software edition
April 5, 2018 12:58 PM Subscribe
I'm just finishing up my taxes, and I'm not happy with H&R Block. While it's fresh on your mind, what program do you love or hate?
I have seen this from a couple years ago.
I'm dissatisfied with H&RB mostly because of a few egregious UI issues but also with the perfunctory effort on the Connecticut state program. I've used H&RB for over a decade. Before that, I used TurboTax. I can't remember exactly what caused me to switch but I do remember it seemed that every year was less program for more money.
My requirements are pretty basic, but they do include downloading reports/forms from a stockbroker and a simple K-1.
So, what should I switch to for next year, or should I stick with what I know.
I have seen this from a couple years ago.
I'm dissatisfied with H&RB mostly because of a few egregious UI issues but also with the perfunctory effort on the Connecticut state program. I've used H&RB for over a decade. Before that, I used TurboTax. I can't remember exactly what caused me to switch but I do remember it seemed that every year was less program for more money.
My requirements are pretty basic, but they do include downloading reports/forms from a stockbroker and a simple K-1.
So, what should I switch to for next year, or should I stick with what I know.
I've used TurboTax for over ten years and this is the last time. I don't know what happened -- it used to be 'fine'. I could do our taxes in about an hour. This year it was almost unusable and the whole time I had the sense that maybe it would just eat everything I entered.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:51 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:51 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Huh. I use H&R Block, including Connecticut state, and did not see any noticeable differences from last year? It took me the same amount of time it usually does and I got within the same returns/results ballpark as usual. Our needs are moderately complex - my partner is self-employed - but I've been using the software for so many years that it all feels pretty easy and consistent. Is there something specific that you want done differently?
posted by widdershins at 2:18 PM on April 5, 2018
posted by widdershins at 2:18 PM on April 5, 2018
I like TaxAct better than the alternatives. It's very inexpensive in subsequent years with the early bird discounts they will email you. You don't actually have to file early, just start the new return.
posted by wierdo at 3:50 PM on April 5, 2018
posted by wierdo at 3:50 PM on April 5, 2018
Response by poster: Well, widdershins, since you ask... Yes, it's much the same as last year, and I was nearly as out of sorts about it last year.
The single worst bit of coding that I've discovered has to do with itemized lists. If you are going to add a number of things together for one entry, you make an itemized list. Suppose you make several. If you return to one of those entries and select "open list", perhaps to add another entry, it provides a list of your lists identified by the schedule and line to which it pertains. But the user does not necessarily know the schedule and line and it's not apparent anywhere on the screen. So you pick one, but it's the wrong one. When you are through with the list and close it, it puts you on the form, not back onto the interview page from which you left. You gotta "GO TO" to get on with your business.
I download buy/sell stock transaction from my brokerage house. The program requires that you tab through each one "to see if it's correct" as if you have any info that difference than the brokerage. I suppose they have to do that, ineffective as it is. However, when you finish doing transaction #n, it returns you to the top of the page forcing you to work you way down. It should return you to the line you left.
The compare to last year seems to have gone away. (Yest, there is a compare to last year's data.)
On the Connecticut section, my wife supplies me with a list of 50+ out of state transactions to be entered into the USE TAX section. The program totally punts and says click whole form and enter the data there. Really? This is especially annoying because Dept of Revenue Services gives you a total of four lines to enter the data, totally indicating that they don't actually expect the citizens to report out of state purchases. [Lookin' at you, Dannel!] So to be totally cool, I would have to create 12+ copies of the form and enter 4 purchases per page. The least that the program could do would be to have the data entered on a worksheet and create the copies as needed.
Yeah it works, but it's not cheap, and it doesn't get better from year to year. Even the really bad things stay the same.
posted by SemiSalt at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2018
The single worst bit of coding that I've discovered has to do with itemized lists. If you are going to add a number of things together for one entry, you make an itemized list. Suppose you make several. If you return to one of those entries and select "open list", perhaps to add another entry, it provides a list of your lists identified by the schedule and line to which it pertains. But the user does not necessarily know the schedule and line and it's not apparent anywhere on the screen. So you pick one, but it's the wrong one. When you are through with the list and close it, it puts you on the form, not back onto the interview page from which you left. You gotta "GO TO" to get on with your business.
I download buy/sell stock transaction from my brokerage house. The program requires that you tab through each one "to see if it's correct" as if you have any info that difference than the brokerage. I suppose they have to do that, ineffective as it is. However, when you finish doing transaction #n, it returns you to the top of the page forcing you to work you way down. It should return you to the line you left.
The compare to last year seems to have gone away. (Yest, there is a compare to last year's data.)
On the Connecticut section, my wife supplies me with a list of 50+ out of state transactions to be entered into the USE TAX section. The program totally punts and says click whole form and enter the data there. Really? This is especially annoying because Dept of Revenue Services gives you a total of four lines to enter the data, totally indicating that they don't actually expect the citizens to report out of state purchases. [Lookin' at you, Dannel!] So to be totally cool, I would have to create 12+ copies of the form and enter 4 purchases per page. The least that the program could do would be to have the data entered on a worksheet and create the copies as needed.
Yeah it works, but it's not cheap, and it doesn't get better from year to year. Even the really bad things stay the same.
posted by SemiSalt at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2018
Yeah, I just ran into that..... I downloaded H&R Block for the first time (I'd been using TaxAct), and part way through it required me to upgrade because of K-1 income.
However the form they use isn't what my K-1 forms are and it wasn't quite making sense to me and I couldn't find the correct form....tried to contact support but it's only during the day and I'm doing my taxes in the evening after work so I went back to TaxAct which is exactly as my K-1's are printed.
posted by IpsoFacto at 4:03 PM on April 5, 2018
However the form they use isn't what my K-1 forms are and it wasn't quite making sense to me and I couldn't find the correct form....tried to contact support but it's only during the day and I'm doing my taxes in the evening after work so I went back to TaxAct which is exactly as my K-1's are printed.
posted by IpsoFacto at 4:03 PM on April 5, 2018
I used Turbo Tax until the year I started my small business, at which point it kept prompting me to upgrade to a more expensive version, which, according to their own documentation, I did not need. This caused me to rage quit Turbo Tax.
I switched to Tax Act and haven't looked back. I have pretty simple W2 and self employment income to deal with, so I speak to any more complicated situations, but I been very happy with Tax Act. Easy to use, and their rates are reasonable.
posted by ktkt at 4:17 PM on April 5, 2018
I switched to Tax Act and haven't looked back. I have pretty simple W2 and self employment income to deal with, so I speak to any more complicated situations, but I been very happy with Tax Act. Easy to use, and their rates are reasonable.
posted by ktkt at 4:17 PM on April 5, 2018
Currently using CreditKarma Tax, which is free. Free for Federal filing, free for state filing, free for investment income, free for self-employment, free if you have a high income, free free free. There is only one version and it has everything, because they are not trying to upsell you.
It was a little clunky last year; I found it much better this year. But I would put up with somewhat poor usability because it's free.
Did I mention it's free?
posted by kindall at 4:41 PM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
It was a little clunky last year; I found it much better this year. But I would put up with somewhat poor usability because it's free.
Did I mention it's free?
posted by kindall at 4:41 PM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
I think some of Intuit's better people left when Quicken split off, and overall all the desktop software market is seen as dying by many, with development focused on web-based solutions. TurboTax has been pretty weak in the state taxes area for a bunch of years, where it asks you a bunch of questions without explaining what it is, so that you have to go and pull the official tax forms and instructions from your state. When you do, then you discover that they only did a perfunctory job of it all, copying over the fill-ins from the fed tax forms, and then pasting questions nearly verbatim from the tax form while omitting the instructions.
TurboTax had some terrible UI malfunctions involving itemized list propagation last year. I put substantially less information into TurboTax than some people, because I have Quicken maintain most of that, but in a number of places it is necessary to sum up numbers from a few different reports, so I rely on TurboTax importing last year's tax file and then opening each itemized list and filling in new numbers for each of the list items according to the description for each line in the itemized list. It was reliably wiping out the first item in each itemized list when the list was expanded, which seems to be a glitch as it didn't happen in prior years.
What's going to be a real problem is the new, simplified tax law, which will likely end up hurting those of us who have more complicated tax reporting requirements, as the number of people purchasing the basic software will probably continue to drop in favor of online solutions, free solutions, etc., which will in turn reduce the incentive for companies to put significant money into continuing development and evolution of the products.
It is possible that I am overly cynical and pessimistic, but I expect all the desktop software to continue a general decline.
posted by jgreco at 5:03 PM on April 5, 2018
TurboTax had some terrible UI malfunctions involving itemized list propagation last year. I put substantially less information into TurboTax than some people, because I have Quicken maintain most of that, but in a number of places it is necessary to sum up numbers from a few different reports, so I rely on TurboTax importing last year's tax file and then opening each itemized list and filling in new numbers for each of the list items according to the description for each line in the itemized list. It was reliably wiping out the first item in each itemized list when the list was expanded, which seems to be a glitch as it didn't happen in prior years.
What's going to be a real problem is the new, simplified tax law, which will likely end up hurting those of us who have more complicated tax reporting requirements, as the number of people purchasing the basic software will probably continue to drop in favor of online solutions, free solutions, etc., which will in turn reduce the incentive for companies to put significant money into continuing development and evolution of the products.
It is possible that I am overly cynical and pessimistic, but I expect all the desktop software to continue a general decline.
posted by jgreco at 5:03 PM on April 5, 2018
I had a terrible time with H&R this year and plan to go back to my beloved Tax Act next year. Although next year is going to be such a clusterfuck with the new tax laws, who even knows what will happen?
posted by gatorae at 5:55 PM on April 5, 2018
posted by gatorae at 5:55 PM on April 5, 2018
I understand xero is being deployed more and more widely in the us. In my experience communication from xero is very good and real problems get fixed quickly.
posted by unearthed at 2:00 AM on April 6, 2018
posted by unearthed at 2:00 AM on April 6, 2018
i have used turbotax for over a decade. i considered switching for a long time because their state program/form was awful. but i saw it slowly improving and now that i'm in a different state it's fine.
i always bought the cd until a couple years ago where i just started doing it online. i'm not sure there's much of a (if any) difference between the 2 versions. but i did my taxes and my boyfriend's with no problem, and assistance where needed from them.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:39 AM on April 6, 2018
i always bought the cd until a couple years ago where i just started doing it online. i'm not sure there's much of a (if any) difference between the 2 versions. but i did my taxes and my boyfriend's with no problem, and assistance where needed from them.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:39 AM on April 6, 2018
I've been using FreeTaxUsa for almost 10 years. Very intuitive, stores previous year data, quick processing. The only things it couldn't handle were multiple state filing with reciprocity, and I think they have fixed that since I had to do that over 5 years ago.
posted by RhysPenbras at 9:37 AM on April 6, 2018
posted by RhysPenbras at 9:37 AM on April 6, 2018
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for your ideas and responses. I had expected TurboTax to win the poll, but apparently not, so I guess H&R Block will get the business again next year.
FWIW, I completed and transmitted my return about the 1st week in April. A couple days ago, we got a letter from the IRS saying they needed a Form 6251 - Alternative Minimum Tax. Pretty clearly, H&RB had done the calculation, determined no tax was due, and didn't include the form with the transmitted return. I was able to print the form from the program and send it easily enough, but if we had been waiting on a refund, it would have cost at least a month of delay.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:07 PM on May 7, 2018
FWIW, I completed and transmitted my return about the 1st week in April. A couple days ago, we got a letter from the IRS saying they needed a Form 6251 - Alternative Minimum Tax. Pretty clearly, H&RB had done the calculation, determined no tax was due, and didn't include the form with the transmitted return. I was able to print the form from the program and send it easily enough, but if we had been waiting on a refund, it would have cost at least a month of delay.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:07 PM on May 7, 2018
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posted by deezil at 1:20 PM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]