Customer Reviews

H&R Block TaxCut 2008 Premium Federal + e-file [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

For years, I was a Turbo Tax customer and for years I've seen them bump up the price each tax season. This year, they tried to pull off the most ridiculous stunt since DIVX when you paid to watch movies after you bought the disk.

After paying a premium price for Turbo Tax, Intuit put into place a fee to create and print additional tax returns. Let's compare this to Microsoft Word. They would charege you for the software, then pay an additional fee for each document created! Now, Intuit recently abandoned this price gouging ploy, but it caused me to look elsewhere for tax software, and I purchased Tax Cut.

Pound for pound this software is every good as TT, including a step-by-step interview process. It lacks the "glitz" of TT. but what the heck, its tax software. Plus you get one free e-file, something TT always has charged and additional $15.

Save same money, buy this software. Its every bit as good and less expensive.

TaxCut offers individuals a powerful option for preparing an income tax return that is relatively easy to use. TaxCut assumes that you know little or nothing about income tax law. The software will ask a number of questions and will prompt you for information based on your answers. It will help tremendously if you gather as many of your tax documents as possible before starting. This software is significantly cheaper than paying a service to prepare it and much easier than doing in manually.

The e-file option has been around for some years and is a great way to get your refunds faster. But if you owe money, there's not as much of an advantage. Still, you get five free electronic filing so you might as well use one. In the unlikely event that you plan to prepare more than five returns, make sure you use the e-file for the ones due a refund and file the ones with money due manually. The program will print all the forms you need so it's easy to do and it will save you the cost of the fees for the additional e-files.

One thing to take note of is that this version covers only federal tax returns and does not include a program for state taxes. If you live in a state with no income tax, this is the version you want. But if you do need to file with your state, you'll want to buy the H&R Block TaxCut 2008 Premium Federal + State + e-file version.

If you don't itemize your deductions and have a very simple return, you might be better off preparing the forms manually on your own. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you have a return with major league complications, you should probably go to a good CPA. For everyone else, this is really a no-brainer. It's inexpensive, easy to use, and accurate. I've been using TaxCut for quite a few years and would not even consider giving it up.

I have used TurboTax every year since it first came out, but with the recent extra charges (and Intuit's greed), i switched to TaxCut and I am glad i did. TaxCut can import data from last year's TurboTax file, and the program is more userfriendly and overall more logical to work with. Thank you, Intuit, for making me look elsewhere this year - I found a better program. I only wish i had switched sooner...

Ok, this is the first tax software I've tried. Up until now I stuck with books, PDF forms and a BIG bottle of tylenol. I just finished my return and e-filed it, and I have to say this was the easiest round of taxes yet.

The pros - the initial interview questions seemed to hit everything needed to get most of the info done before hitting the returns. While answering questions TaxCut offered tips and explainations for everyting. If the explaination didn't show the help or explaination link helped figure things out. Overall the the process was pretty painless and was finished rather quickly.

The cons - You have to know a little about your returns for the error checking part. There might be something that needs verifying or an error to correct. If your not familiar with your returns the area that needs adjusting could be strange or confusing. The other is the begining interview questions. While they are complete if your not use to tax software the order of questions can be confusing. Best advise just stick with it and all will be well.

I'd recommend this product to others to use, it worked for me. Granted my return doesn't do a lot of deduction actrobatics (I have wages, mortgage, student loan interest, savings interest and a divident to contend with). If your return is really complicated I'd say take it to someone...besides that complicated and you probably can afford to do so!...LOL

I have used TaxCut for a few years and it does a good job guiding you through the process. Having the change of consulting with an expert is also very good. I did it last year. There is always that one thing that you are not completely sure about and it's better to have an expert opinion at no extra cost.

I have used TaxCut for years now, and am happy to get it for a lower price at Amazon. It did take a couple of tries to get the key code to work, but other than that, it worked great.

taxcut as always is easy, thorough, a pleasure to use. Easy import of data, easy updates, easy to navigate. We will continue to use this every year!

I just finished using H&R TaxCut Premium and I must say it was a very satisfactory experience. I even got to know and use their phone support line to speak to a Real Live Person, which was super. I've never experienced phone support that actually went the extra mile (like 45 minutes, with no hold time) and that actually corrected the problem. Amazing.

(Seems the CD that shipped from Amazon was corrupt in some way and the update feature would not work. At the end of my return, the Error Check procedure refused to certify my return for E-filing because all of the forms were out-of-date. I called their Help Desk for assistance and their support guy stayed on the phone with me for 45 minutes, trying to get the update feature to work. In the end, we both gave up and he gave me a free download of their latest software. The new code and forms worked like a charm and I E-filed my return.)

TaxCut now has a customer for life, more so because of the help desk support than for anything new and amazing in the software. Let's face it -- TaxCut and TurboTax do the same thing, in pretty much the same painless way, to achieve the same result. Neither has a serious advantage over the other. However, one didn't try to slyly pry extra dollars out of my pocket. And the other has some truly extraordinary customer support people who are permitted wide latitude in solving their customers' problems.

My vote? H&R TaxCut!

So far I am very pleased with this software. I did have trouble installing from the CD and had to get it downloaded from the web site. I don't know what caused that problem. I have used Turbotax many times in the past and this is my first use of TaxCut. It did pull the information from the prior Turbotax and thus far has been easy to use. I'll have a more perfect evaluation after I am able to file the return.

A required form (IRS Form 8910) was unavailable (but was available in Turbotax), so the return could not be completed. The chat help person promised this form along with the scheduled updates 3 times (Feb 1, Feb 15, Mar 4), but the form never came as part of these updates). The chat help people didn't seem to have a clue. They were unable to tell me why Turbotax provided the form, while they could not.

Also, the interview was not as good as Turbotax's. There were several ambiguous questions, which I had to guess as to their meaning, which the generic help did little to clarify.