Customer Reviews

H&R Block Taxcut 2006 Home & Business + State

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

 

 

H&R Block Taxcut Home and Business is a good product. I've used it before, and although it requires careful use ("Read the lines....") the end result can be excellent. Note that the product offers preparation of BOTH the personal (Form 1040 + State) form as well as many business forms. I use it for my individual return as well as federal and state returns for a Trust. A prior reviewer is going to have a go at an S-Corporation, and I understand it also will do Partnership returns.

The real reason for this review is the Bundle currently offered (1-14-2007) by Amazon. Currently it reads, "Buy this item with H&R Block Taxcut 2006 Premium Federal + State..." and combines the prices.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Taxcut Home and Business does your personal return as well as the business entity. Moreover, I checked the product description at the H&R Block Taxcut site, and it stipulates "Includes EVERYTHING from Premium + State + E-file." (emphasis added)

So the Amazon bundle offer asks you to buy something ALREADY INCLUDED in the product. By the time you read this review the Bundle offer by Amazon hopefully will have changed. I've used Amazon for many years, and this is an unusual oversight which I'm certain they will correct.

In the interest of disclosure, I used to work for H&R Block, but not now. For those who order ANY tax product I offer the following. IRS has not given final approval for form design changes, so many forms are not available to put on the disc you purchase. This means you will need to go the H&R Block (or whoever) update site to get the updated forms, and you may have to go back several times. You have not been singled out for punishment. This is a process that must be endured by professionals as well as self-preparers. And I'll say it again... "Read the lines!"

I have owned my own consulting business for going on 6 years and have used the TaxCut software for the past 3 years with terrific results. The software package allows you to do your federal and state Corp/Small Bus/S-Corp taxes as well as your personal 1040 federal and State for under $80.00!! The personal tax program is superior to the business tax process but both are fairly simple as long as you have some knowledge of the process and the information being requested. Another key perk is the software does interact fairly well with MS Money software so if you have taken the time throughout the year to categorize personal and business expenses it makes for quick dissemination of information.

The reason I call it a little buggy is that every year there is some issue. The software will not load the updated forms properly or it will hang when opened, etc etc. This is irritating but the tech support has been outstanding and easily reached. It has been located in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, I believe) in past years but I cannot attest to whether it is still in the U.S., or outsourced, this year as I have not yet called.

All in all, to be able to do your business and personal taxes accurately for next to nothing and in a very short amount of time is invaluable. A very satisfied TaxCut user.

According to reviews of TurboTax's Home and Business, it appears that TurboTax does not support S Corp (but probably does in the more expensive copr. package). Since many small businesses are S Corps, you probably will need to buy something besides TurboTax...like this program.

That is why I bought this product...I checked the product homepage (taxcut_com) and it said

"Complete Business Coverage - Helps you prepare returns for a number of business types, including Corporations, S Corporations, Partnerships, Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), Non-profits and Estates & Trusts. Plus, the program handles Payroll Taxes as well."

So hopefully it will work for me without any additional software. I will try to come back and update this review once I try it out...but since it is from H&R Block, I figure it might not be the simplist program, but at least it will be accurate (they actually guarantees that...although most errors are from the users anyway).

Nice little perk is that the software comes on a USB jumpdrive for easy installation...and it also will import TurboTax files from previous years...

Sorry this review is not more informative, but after spending an hour digging around for S Corp info, I thought it would be helpful to mention that this apparently supports S Corp Businesses, as well as (unlimited) business state returns, personal federal and state as well as E-Filing... Overall it certainly seems to include alot of forms and features for one price.

First, let me state that the personal tax preparation program is great. I would give it five stars. My personal taxes are complicated and yet the program still was easy and intuitive (my 2006 return was close to 100 pages, including 5 partnerships, a sole proprietorship, rental real estate, interest or dividends from 10 accounts, and hundreds of stock transactions).

That being said, I bought this program so that I could do my LLC (partnership tax return) return as well as my individual return. The business program was separate. It crashed multiple times (over 12 times total). The radio buttons didn't even line up with their descriptions, so it was hard even to complete the interview. Also, it would have been nice if the program explained how to deal with startup expenses (which, by the way, not even the IRS could explain to me; I had to go out and find an enrolled agent who told me how to deal with them). Doing my return should have been easy--my LLC is a simple business with no inventory and cash accounting. But Tax Cut Business turned it into an ordeal.

The Home version of this program is very good, perhaps 4 or 5 stars. The Business version is a little buggy. I woud give it 2 stars for an average for the product of 3 stars.

If you know what you're doing you won't have a problem. The Business program isn't set up to handle large screen fonts, formatting will be off but you can figure it out. In addition you can't import last year's data unless you actually have the last year's version installed. No way am I going to keep tax software on my computer once I've filed!

TaxCut is cheaper than TurboTax, and it worked fine on Form 1040. However, it has a number of bugs for Form 1041, and I had over-ride a number of values to get the K-1's to come out right. If I had been less familiar with the rules I would have been in trouble.

Still a clunky interface compared to TurboTax. Had to get both this year as TurboTax didn't have one of the forms I needed. In TaxCut Home & Business you actually have to install 2 programs from 2 CDs. They almost seem like they're written by 2 different companies and the Businss one seems to be buggier. All I get is the welcome screen and thne the program disappears. Have had to reinstall several times.

Have used taxcut premium for many years. With a new small business moved to taxcut home and business. Very disappointed to discover that Taxcut Home & Business will not import last years data from Taxcut Premium. I expect products from the same vendor to have seamless transition. After all this was not a switch to Turbo Tax. I'm sure it's a great program but who wants to manually reenter all their information. Will drop back to Taxcut Premium and will not use Home & Business this year or again.

My computer crashed right in the middle of preparing both a personal and a business (S Corp) return with this product. Fortunately, I had back-ups of the data, but needed to reinstall the software on a different machine. Having tried something similar with Intuit's TurboTax products a couple of years ago, I expected the worst (i.e., having to buy new copies, or at least pay to re-download the state forms)--so I was totally shocked when the reinstallations and re-downloads took only a couple of minutes and posed no problems.

As other reviewers have said, both programs are somewhat buggy so you do have to manually verify that calculations, etc., are correct. However, these products are no worse that the TurboTax products in that regard--they may even be slightly better. In terms of value and ease of use per dollar, the TaxCut products are the hands-down winner.

TaxCut arguably makes the best personal tax software products available (yeah I'm saying it IS better than Turbo Tax - I've used both - plus, it doesn't load sneaky programs onto your PC like Turbo Tax did). However, their business version isn't as refined. The interview process is limited (you need a working knowledge of filling out the various tax forms). You get the sense that Tax Cut expects most businesses to use a tax professional and they threw this product out there just so they would have an entry in the business tax software category.

However, it is definitely usable and worthwhile for those that do their own business taxes. The only SERIOUS drawback is that it lacks efiling. You must print out the forms and mail them in. This all but ensures that the IRS will make errors as they manually transfer the figures from your forms into their computers. Come on H&R Block, add efiling to this product (please).