Customer Reviews

Taxcut 2002 Platinum (Mac)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

I've been a Mac user since 1989 and this is the single worst piece of software I've ever purchased. It's so bad I'm going to spend 30 minutes of my life telling you why, so you don't make the mistake of buying it.

1) After installing off the CD, I started it up. The very first thing it told me was to go download an update. This sounded great, I was psyched they were so on top of things, so I clicked on the link, went to their page and downloaded the update. After downloading the update I was a little bit leery, because the instructions on the page didn't match what was actually downloaded (there was no "Update B" option), but I went ahead and followed the rest of the directions for updating. Restarted, etc, and discovered that now the program simply crashed on startup ("Unknown Error Type 3"). Happened every time, tried reinstalling off CD, redownloading update, same result. I finally decided to simply proceed with the version off the CD and hope the update wasn't critical to my needs.

2) Starting afresh, I got to work. For while, things were pretty straightforward and OK. Then I got to the "Capital Gains & Losses" section, where I engaged the Capital Gains Assistant. The first question deals with "Average Basis Method". Since I don't know what that means, I figured I'd click on the link that would presumably explain it to me. Program crashed instantly. Restarted, tried again, same result. Restarted, thought maybe that one link is bad, clicked on "Help" in the yellow sidebar. Program crashed. Restarted, clicked on "Ask A Tax Advisor". Program crashed. Restarted, clicked on Search and was prompted for topic. However, (A) there's apparently no entry for "average basis method" and (B), no matter what else I enter, the second I click on "Go There" to see what it has to say... program crashes! So basically, the main reason I bought the software-it's alleged ability to explain unfamiliar terms and procedures-absolutely does not work!

At this point, I sent an email to their tech support outlining all of this. Got an automated reply saying I'd get help within 48 hours. More on that farce later.

3) In the meantime, after lots of gnashing of teeth. I did some research on the IRS site, figured out what I needed to know and forged ahead. At the same time, I figured I'd download the state add-on I needed (California). Since they claimed the state stuff would be available for download by Jan 31, I naively assumed that since it was Feb. 7, that I would be able to do so. Ha! No way, not until a few days after that was the Mac version available. Paid for it, downloaded it, and guess what? The installer doesn't work! The download went fine, but when I try to run the installer I get the message: "An error occurred while reading the installation data. This installer appears to be damaged." I tried shutting everything down, restarting, and running the installer and got the same error message. I tried redownloading the installer and got the same message. Go to their site to report this (now that I know where the form is!), fill out the form, and now the submit button to send the tech support form doesn't work!!! Been trying it off and on for three hours. All while doing all kinds of other web surfing, emailing, etc. Unreal.

4) Meanwhile, the 48 hours since my tech support request went out has come and gone. I reread their auto response email and see that "If you do not receive a response in the allotted time, please contact our TaxCut Technical Support Team at http://..." So, what they're saying is, if we don't respond in the time we say we will, you need to go to this page, and fill out a long form restating your question! Oh, and the grandest irony of that foolishness is that the link they give you to "Submit Your Question" doesn't work!!! You get dumped onto their homepage and have to go hunt for the page they meant to send you to! Welcome to HTML for seven-year-olds... Finally, 72 hours (almost to the minute!) after I sent my initial email, I get an email from their tech support. It's a stock response, totally ignoring my specific problems, which outlines the "Macintosh minimum system requirements" to run the program and simply signs off by saying, "If you have any further questions or concerns, please reply to this e-mail." Well, I actually did read the system requirements before I bought the program, but thanks for sharing them again.... So, I replied and suppose it'll be another 72 hours before I hear back.

In the meantime, I'm going to box up this piece of junk and get all my money back.

I have a fairly simple tax needs. I am switching from TurboTax ( which was out of stock ) to TaxCut, which claims it can transfer your data from last year's TurboTax forms. But this capability dosen't come in the box, it comes in the form of a 25 Megabyte download, and I don't have DSL, so I gave up on that and entered everything over again. When I was ready to do my state taxes, I discovered that the California forms were not going to be available until February 28th! None of the Federal Updates ( strongly suggested ) are available yet for Mac, probably not until late Feb! I'm doing my taxes with a pen and ink and returning this software.

I have been preparing my family's tax returns for years. I figure I haved saved us hundreds of dollars in accountant fees (not to mention the money I did not have to pay in taxes). For a few years I used Turbo Tax for Mac (Intuit), but it angered me last year that I had to pay more for a Mac platform. So I went with TaxCut for Mac (Block). I found it even better and easier to use that TurboTax. And last year the price was the same for both Mac and Windows.
The program allowed me to breeze through the preparation and all the long forms (A,B,C,D,etc.etc.) with such ease that I prepared my mother's, children's and mother-in-law's also.
I now see that the price of TaxCut for Mac (Platinium) is more that the Windows. That stinks. But since I now have no choice in price, I will again go with TaxCut, and just deduct the cost of it on next year's return...

If you haven't yet bought your tax software this year, or if you've never used tax software before, do NOT buy Taxcut for TY 2002. It'll slay the inexperienced, for sure. I bought it this year, having used MacIntax (Softview, then Chipsoft)/Turbotax (Intuit) since 1986, for a reason common to some of the other reviewers: Intuit's arrogance, which has grown immensely over the last few years. Bottom line, before I go further: swallow your pride and open your wallet a little wider and get Intuit's Turbotax for the Mac this year. The way-friendlier interface alone, for this mature product, will make facing tax-time less of a burden.

I'll only mention a couple of things, since so much has been written about the same problems. One thing with which I did not have a problem is downloading the update, although 3 hours and a 25-MB update is inexcuseable for a disc purchased in mid-February! Particularly with all of the bugs and/or extremely poor-quality software writing and logic. (And they're not even done updating!)

I experienced the same flashing-screen/no-data-entry problem mentioned elsewhere, particularly in the data-backup screens that flow to a line.

Form 8582 (which I don't require) is generated by JUST OPENING Schedule K-1. This is important, because you must wait for Block to update that form before you can e-file. Overriding any Taxcut-calculated form or line precludes one from e-filing. So I won't be able to take advantage of the e-filing rebate. Although most users probably don't get involved in K-1's, I mention this because it is similar to the kinds of problems others are having with Taxcut.

The printer interface is erratic, at best. You will not always print the forms/pages you directed the program to print.

The entire "Help" system is a joke. I used to think that the MacIntax/Turbotax user-interface was overkill. No longer. At least there IS an interface. Taxcut's "Help" system is not even close to being as complete as #1's. And it is confusing as can be.

Next year, hopefully at least one of two things will happen: 1) Intuit will stop price-discriminating against Mac users (and also not incorporate Intuit's "spyware" in the Mac version); or, 2) Block will get serious and take on the task of giving us a first-class alternative to Intuit.

I made the mistake of swapping from TurboTax.

The Tax Cut software does not give me a warm comfortable feeling that it has done everything properly. The questionaire is obtuse, the search for help does not work with my browsers.

The website for tax cut is useless. The Federal update won't download, neither will the State . Only 1 of two emails has been responded to by tech support. (I never had a problem before, been doing my taxes on my Mac since 1995)

Absolutely P'O'd at Tax time... just what I needed.

I'm sorry to say this people, but TaxCut for Mac is awful to the point of being unusable. Do yourself a favor, forget it! When I first got going, I thought TaxCut was going to be OK... different from TurboTax -and in some ways simpler. But TaxCut turns out to be the buggiest software I have ever used, bar none! I could sit here for an hour and discuss the long list of serious problems with it, including totally crazy calculations in the capital gains section. It even froze up twice on my normally crashless G3/500 w/ OS 9.2.2 losing 5 hours of entries. The final glitch was that it won't even let me e-file the bogus return it cooked up because the software updater, which actually works OK (if you have high-speed to get the 15 MB updater) did not satisfy the final error checker. I have already wasted 4 days, totally aghast at how crappy this software is, and am going back to TurboTax which at least worked for me for the last 3 years. I have to! TaxCut is totally unreliable and I wouldn't dare even try to file the wacky return it came up with. I don't think Uncle Sam would appreciate it.

Just a few notes to perspective buyers...

- The 25 MB update is required for importing from TurboTax. The updated import seems to work well, although I had 3 identical copies of all my depreciation worksheets of which all had some standard info missing. 10 minutes of error correction fixed this but it could have been better. Otherwise the import was exact and allowed me to enter new salary info directly in the import box, which sped data entry.

- The process of working through the software was simple and painless (much the same as TurboTax) and no crashes or other issues were encountered

- When I got to the end the error check indicated that I did not have the mid-January update which contained the updates to schedule C and some worksheets, along with (hopefully) an e-file update. This mid-January Windows update is slated for mid-February for the Mac, so you will not be able to file until then if you use schedule C or e-file.

- Lastly, I then went to the TaxCut web site to buy my state edition (which is then reimbursed with a coupon in the federal box). None of the Mac state editions are available yet and are not expected until the 28th of February.

So, in conclusion the software seems to work well and be stable (on Mac OS X in this case) but is waiting on some final updates to be a complete package.

I'm a little disapointed with this product at the start. Note, I haven't started using the software, I've just installed it and tried to update the software.

There are two main issues:

1.) Update download- the update download wasn't working as the ftp site reached it's max user limit of 200. With the sales of this product you would think they would have more than 200 allowed on at 1 time to the site.

2.) State Tax software- the State Tax software won't be ready until later Feb. Now wonder why they give it to you free.

Hopefully the actual use of the software will be better than the setup. As a long time Turbo tax customer I'm starting to wonder about my choice for this years taxes.

It would have been easier to prepare taxes by hand. The program created duplicate, triplicate and in some cases sextuplicate form entries.

The results of using the "delete form" option are not visible until you close all the screens and reopen them. After that, the Review Last Year option is useless because the forms appear to be cross-linked.

It was impossible to be certain that the program was correctly calculating our 1099 forms--it came up with a wide variety of reported income figures. The amount of refund/tax owed fluctuated by 300%. The final total, after going through an error-check process that is like something from a medieval torture chamber, was FIVE TIMES the amount of tax that we paid last year--even though our income was roughly the same and our deductible expenses higher.

The last thing I did before giving up was to re-examine the checklist (not an intuitive task by any means) only to find that TaxCut had duplicated one of the Schedule C forms THREE TIMES.

Don't even get me started on the problems with downloading the update...

The Good: TaxCut is less expensive than TurboTax and was first to OS X last year. Now it imports last year's TurboTax data!

The Bad: Now I know why it's cheaper. TaxCut is a mere advertisement for H&R Block. The program does its best to confuse the user into giving up and driving to the local office for human filing help. TaxCut's web-based "Help" system will run you around in aimless circles. The so-called automatic update asks for permission to connect to the Internet, even though that's how the Help works the entire time. If it finds an update, the program claims that it will handle everything. Not true, it simply dumps you on their web site where it doesn't even show you which files you should download and manually install. Skipped an interview question accidentally? Don't try the Back button, because half the time it will skip back an entire section instead of that last page. You get to start over! What about that one year head-start in OS X? I guess it wasn't long enough to pop the lid on Cocoa so we could use a mouse with a scroll wheel.

The Ugly (as of April 13): Pop-up menus in the interview questions look empty until you pop them open. After you make a selection, it doesn't show anymore, as the size goes back to zero. After you complete a section (i.e. 1099-MISC worksheet) and come back to its directory, sometimes the item you just created will display and sometimes it won't. And I hope you didn't change your mind about that single item you decided to add in an Itemize list yesterday. When you open your file today, the entire list you created will now be titled "untitled" and contain one item called "value."

The Fugly: TurboTax import? All seemed well until I got to the final error check. "You have 270 errors and 4 warnings." Why? Because I suddenly had 69 depreciation lists, only three of which were legit. All 270 errors stem from a logical error taught in programming 101: Anywhere I'd entered a "No" or zero in TurboTax was now a blank in TaxCut, and it thinks I haven't answered questions about whether I've sold an item or not, or to which copy of the Schedule C this should be applied. There wasn't even a way to mass-delete all the extra forms. I had to visit each form to delete it. When I got to the vehicle expense section, my vehicle from the previous years didn't show up. I guess it didn't import. Wait! Yes it did, because now I'm getting errors for each one, also because of one or two "missing" choices. Waste more time repairing, and.. No errors, no warnings, proceed to state.. Three warnings. Visit the first warning. An incomplete description, circular Help, and a suggestion to modify the "form below." There is no form below. That's enough.

The numerous and pathetic bugs in TaxCut would be acceptable in other types of software. But this is a program with a deadline, written by people who are supposed to be good at details (if nothing else). I'm left feeling unsure about my personal taxes for the first time in several years of MacInTax aka TurboTax Mac. As much as I don't like Intuit's attitude towards customers or their decision this year to charge extra for Schedule C help, I'll be looking at TurboTax next year.