Customer Reviews

H&R Block TaxCut State, 2003 Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I have been a loyal Turbotax user for years and decided to tryout TaxCut this year. I was EXTREMELY unhappy after last year's fiasco where Intuit installed Spyware without users knowledge in order to cutdown on copyright infringement of their product. Unfortunately, they ticked off the loyal users like myself. I believe they have lost/will lose more sales based on that fiasco than they could've possibly saved by catching a few people trying to copyright infringe!
Anyway, I was impressed with TaxCut especially for the price. I paid about 40% less for TaxCut Deluxe & TaxCut State than I would have paid for Turbotax Deluxe & Turbotax State.

For the most part, the programs are very similar. TaxCut does the usual interview process just like Turbotax and it makes it very easy to work with. Where TaxCut needs a bit more polish is in the fine details. Missing was the ability to save your tax returns into Adobe Acrobat format. I love that feature in Turbotax and really missed it.

In addition, I had a little trouble with form 4767 because I claim deductions for a home office and sold my house/moved this year. It worked out after some reading of the help file and IRS.gov site, but it could've been more intuitive.

Other than those couple of items, I was very happy with the program(s). I ran my return through Turbotax's website (without purchasing or filing it) and the numbers came out the same so I am satisfied with the accuracy of the software as well. Overall I'm glad I switched to TaxCut this year. I doubt I'll look at Turbotax in the future.

Twenty five dollars for software that cannot be used!

1 star is too many.

When you run the program you get a message that says you need to download the latest version - which will be available on January 31st. You can't use the program to get a head start or to estimate your taxes since there is no program beyond the message. They might just as well sell an empty box with a note that gives a URL to the download. Meanwhile, they have your money and you have nothing.

I used TaxCut for 2002 and 2003 because of Intuit's spyware debacle. I was very happy with the 2002 version and everything went very well - just as well as TurboTax in previous years. However, this year TaxCut state for CA did several things that make me feel uncertain about the accuracy of my return:

1) It filled out a 540X for me, indicating an amended return. I gave it no information that would indicate an amended return. I had to delete the form to get it to file correctly.

2) It filled out several other forms, such as "Teacher Credit", "Child and Dependent Credit", despite me answering "NO" to questions regarding these credits. I had to delete these forms as well.

3) It demanded that I fill out my child's name on Form 3803, even though I don't have a child and didn't say that I did.

4) It wanted me to fill out form 3801, Passive Activity Loss, but gave me no information on how to do so. It filled out the Federal Return just fine, but didn't carry information over correctly.

5) Here's a sample of the help I got from Customer Support: "deleting the first copy of the Schedule C will cause this form to be deleted although a new "third" copy of Schedule C will immediately be re-created because of the 1099-MISC directed to the Schedule C. In that case, the 1099-MISC must be deleted or redirected to another form." That's the extent of it - I have no idea how to "redirect" a 1099-MISC. I didn't even have any 1099-MISC's anyways.

6) Apparently, there are known issues at this review's writing time, 2/19/2004: "First, your concern over form 3803. You can delete this form. You just need to open that form up and press the "delete form" button. This is a known issue our programmers are working on. However, the answer to the issue is clear. Deleting that form should take care of any issue arising from it." No update is planned according to the Update feature on TaxCut. So you have to run into the problem, try and figure out what to do, and go from there.

And yes, I updated religiously. I even re-ran through my return 3 times to try to get everything right.

This program does 2003 Virginia tax incorrectly. I have to do a paper return and that's much easier.

FYI, if you need to do a second state return, you will need to buy another copy of this software.

This software requires you to download the updates, but the updates cannot even be installed. I keep getting "corrupt installation file or corrupt media" when it tries to copy the new NYTax.dll. The Technical Support people cannot even help. I'm doing my taxes by hand at this rate.

I tried to submit my State return using this product and it informed me that it didn't have the form I needed. But this must have been somewhat intentional, because it knew which form I needed and where to get it! The entire point in buying the software was so I could E-file, and now I can't, and I'm still out $25!

The federal Program was good, so if you live in an area without State taxes, then TaxCut could be your program. But stay away from State!

I have used TaxCut for the past three years and never had trouble until this year. Be careful to look closely at how TaxCut handles direct IRA rollovers. It pulled the rollover amount (instead of the taxable rollover amount -- $0) in as taxable on my state form. I ended up having to file a hard copy because of this, and went around the block 6 times with the support staff to try and get them to recognize that there was an issue. They never did.

This is my first -- and last -- year to use TaxCut. I have never seen such buggy software. Not only did it incorrectly assume tax reporting information, it wouldn't let me "turn off" the erroneous assumption. Because of this error, I was unable to e-file (kind of the whole point); however, I am also unable to print correctly. I have no idea (aside from completing the form by hand) how I'm going to file my state taxes. TaxCut's web help (and online help) are NO HELP in resolving these issues. On the plus side, the software offers a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee -- I'll be using it. If you want software you can trust, skip TaxCut and find something else. (I gave this "one star" because no stars isn't an option.)

Mississippi does not tax retirement income from the military but the program pulled the full retirement from the 1099-R into the state as taxable income causing the miscalculation of the refund amount. I called and could not get intouch with them so I did an online chat and they refered my case to research and were to get back to me in 24-48 hours and they have not in over 8 days now. I can overide the error but can not file electronically if I do.

I usually do my taxes on my own, but due to some one-time changes this year that greatly complicated them I decided to try out taxcut 2003. What a mistake! It was slow and confusing, I had to search through the menus to find some entries. The Missouri state form has no automatic entry for estimated tax payments, so I had to fill them out by hand anyway. I going to see how good their 100% satisfaction guarantee is and try and get my money back.