H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile [OLD VERSION]

by H&R Block

Product Features

• Ideal for homeowners and investors, H&R Block At Home Deluxe includes everything you need to easily complete your federal taxes, plus five free federal e-files
• Customized interview process helps you easily complete your federal taxes
• Easily import W-2, 1099, and data from last year's return; quickly import data from TaxCut, TurboTax, Quicken, and Microsoft Money software
• Automatically double-checks returns for errors; built-in expertise and audit support with guidance
• Guidance for reporting investments, dividends, home sales, and retirement income; H&R Block DeductionPro software to maximize tax savings from donations

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B002SR0QC0
• Item model number: 1333600-09
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 1, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,219 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

H&R Block At Home Deluxe includes everything you need to easily complete your federal taxes, plus five free federal e-files. With a new, easy-to-use interface, H&R Block At Home Deluxe searches for hundreds of deductions to get customers the biggest refund.

Everything you need to easily complete your federal taxes, plus five free federal e-files. Click to enlarge.

Guidance for reporting investments, dividends, home sales, and retirement income. Click to enlarge.

Ideal for homeowners and investors, the program includes personalized tax guidance and features available only from H&R Block, such as built-in expertise and audit support with guidance, plus an H&R Block enrolled agent to represent customers in the event of an audit.

At Home Deluxe (No State)

Investors / Homeowners
The right choice for customers with more complex tax situations to easily complete their federal returns. Includes five free federal e-files and built-in expertise available only from H&R Block!

Includes these features:

• Customized interview process to help customers easily complete their federal taxes.
  
  
• Five free federal e-files.
  
  
• Personalized tax guidance for popular occupations and specific deductions, plus answers to FAQs.
  
  
• Audit support with guidance, plus an H&R Block enrolled agent to represent you in the event of an audit. Included when you file a federal return.
  
  
• Guidance for reporting investments, dividends, home sales, and retirement income.
  
  
• Advice, tips, and planning tools for the upcoming year.
  
  
• Easily import W-2, 1099, and data from last year's return.
  
  
• Quickly import data from TaxCut, TurboTax, Quicken, Microsoft Money, and H&R Block DeductionPro software.
  
  
• H&R Block DeductionPro software to maximize tax savings from donations.

Compare At Home Editions

Product Description

Guidance for all your personal tax situations. Federal forms. Step-by-step interviews guide you through a customized experience relevant to your tax situation. Everything you need to prepare your federal taxes in one complete program.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't Play Nice With 64-bit Windows Vista..., January 5, 2010

By 

M. Spalmacin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

The H&R At Home Deluxe Federal + E-file CD received from Amazon installs quickly enough. On attempting to start the installed program I immediately receive a message saying that At Home is not running on the computer it was originally installed on. That's silly because this is the only computer I have. But I follow the suggestion to un-install, then re-install the software. I get the same result, At Home won't start.

My on-line chat with H&R Support eventually leads to their request to check into Microsoft Update and install any missing "Critical" updates. There are none. But there are some "Important" ones. However, they're for programs I don't have (e.g., Office 2003, Server 2005, etc.) or don't want (e.g., Internet Explorer 8). H&R Support can't be any more specific about which updates might be necessary and I can't tell from the explanations of the updates which one(s) might affect At Home's inability to know where it's running.

I'm stuck.

I'm not going to install 8 updates willy-nilly, hoping one (or more) of them will solve the problem. At Home is obviously checking some internal value somewhere that tells it where it thinks it was installed against some value stored in the bowels of 64-bit Windows Vista, but H&R Support can't tell me what At Home is looking for.

So I still have no clue why At Home won't even start up. Has anyone else stumbled across this problem in 64-bit Vista (w/Service pack 1) and solved it? If not, I'm going to have to return H&R Block At Home (2009) and see if I have any better luck with Turbo-Tax for 2009.

I'm frustrated because last year I switched from Turbo Tax to H&R Block Tax Cut and found it easy and simple to use. Oh, well, back to Turbo Tax.


*** Update, Jan 12th, 2010 ***

An H&R At Home representative contacted me at home (no pun intended!) after reading the above review. He apologized for the failure and said that I had encountered a known problem that wasn't related to "critical" Vista-64 updates. The problem affects some but not all Vista-64 users. Anyway, nothing I might have done during or as a result of the on-line chat would have solved my problem. He said they have a fix in hand for the problem and that they expect to have it available for download on Jan 15th. All in all, well handled by H&R and a good public relations endeavor. My opinion of them has risen substantially as a result of our conversation.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buggy installation/permissions on Macs: I have the problem & the solution, January 21, 2010

By 

Allan Ray Miller "Ray's Reviews" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

There are two bugs that affect H&R Block At Home 2009 for some Apple Mac users. Since both problems prevent customers from updating the program from the H&R Block web servers, customers must correct both problems manually before any updates from H&R Block are possible.

Who it affects: Mac customers who both: 1) have multiple login accounts on the Mac and 2) attempt to run H&R Block At Home 2009 from a non-admin account.

Problem #1: During the installation process the initial update fails due to file permissions. Error message is: "1008:5,-5000 Access denied error. You do not have enough access privileges for this installation"

Resolution: 1) Stop the program installation and log in under the admin account, 2) open a Finder window, 3) open the Applications folder, 4) uninstall the H&R Block 2009 program by dragging the icon to the Trash, 5) in the Finder window open the Utilities folder, 6) run the Disk Utility program, 7) select your hard drive as the disk upon which to operate, 8) click on the "Repair Disk Permissions" button and wait for that process to complete, 9) reinstall the H&R Block 2009 program under the admin account.

Problem #2: When running H&R Block 2009 using a non-admin login account, the program crashes immediately upon launch due to file permissions. Error message is: "Initialization Failed. Exception thrown during initialization: File open failed. File = /Users/Shared/H&R Block/2009/update.tim in open:MacFileWriterImpl"

Resolution: 1) Exit the program and log in under the admin account, 2) open a Finder window, 3) open the Macintosh HD icon, 4) open the Users folder, then the Shared folder, then the H&R Block folder, 5) right-click on the 2009 folder, 6) select "Get Info" on the menu, 7) on the pop-up window in the "Sharing & Permissions" section set ALL permissions that say "Read Only" to instead say "Read & Write", 8) return to the Finder window and open the 2009 folder, 9) right-click on the update.tim file, 10) select "Get Info" on the menu, 11) on the pop-up window in the "Sharing & Permissions" section set ALL permissions that say "Read Only" to instead say "Read & Write".

Upon successful resolution of both of these problems the customer will be able to run H&R Block 2009 from a non-admin account to do their taxes. As of the date of this note however (1/22/2010) all program updates must still be made using the admin account.

I discovered and diagnosed this on my own machine. Fortunately I'm a geek and so was able to figure out the problem & share it with others. Obviously H&R Block did not test this scenario before they shipped the program. Dunno if a similar problems exists on Windows machines. Also dunno if there will be further problems when I download & install the State program. I haven't gotten that far yet.

UPDATE Problem #3: I installed the Maryland state program tonight (1/27) when it became available for download. Given the problems above I used the admin account to do the install and then switched back to my normal account. Ran the program: no Maryland state tax program installed! And you're only allowed to download it one time without paying again! Turns out the state program downloads into the directory ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/ (for non-techies ~ means starting at your home directory) and a non-shared plugin is created. This thwarts other accounts from using the state program.

Resolution: Using a Finder window in the admin account copy the file ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/Completed Updates/md.dmg (for other states replace md.dmg with your state's abbreviation e.g. va.dmg for Virginia.) Paste this into a shared directory such as Macintosh HD/Users/Shared. Go back into your normal account and copy that same file from the Shared directory into your own ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/Completed Updates/ directory. Double click on that file (md.dmg in my case.) A new window will pop up and you'll see a new file which starts with your state's two-letter abbreviation. In my case it was called MD.TCstate09. Double click on that file. Another window will pop up which says it is installing the state plug-in. After that, you'll be able to use the state program under your normal user account as you intended.

Don't ask me how to update all of this mess at this point when H&R Block is ready to push out new program updates. Do you use the admin account? The user account? Who knows? It might even depend upon whether you are updating the Federal or the State return. What a mess!

H&R Block really blew it this year on multi-user account support, at least on the Macs. I tried relaying this to their Customer Service (3 phone calls and 2 online Chat sessions) but they had no one who understood the Macs and no way for me to email to them my diagnosis and solutions. They were nice and tried to be helpful but I'm not sure they got exactly what I was saying. I hope so though.

I have liked H&R Block in the past and they are cheaper than TurboTax. This year, however, makes it difficult to remain a loyal customer. We'll see what I do in tax year 2010.

Anyway, I hope my pain is able to help other Mac users get up and running.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be Sure to get the Version with State taxes if you need it, January 2, 2010

By 

Some Dude (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I like Taxcut a lot.

But you have to be very careful when buying it. If you want want to use the program to do your state taxes, be sure to look closely at the box/product to be sure that you are entitled to a free download of the state program. Obviously, the price tends to be lower if the product does not entitle you to the state program for your taxes.