Customer Reviews

TurboTax Basic Federal + efile 2009 [Old Version]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I've used Turbo Tax products for over ten years now, and this is the last version that I will purchase until I'm more disgusted with the other companies tax preparation software than I am with this one.

When I purchased this issue of Turbo Tax, I knew that it didn't include the ability to use It's Deductible. I didn't care because I didn't want to. My problem is that the software will not acknowledge my donations to charity: I can enter them when I go through the guide, and they show up within the appropriate fields of the worksheets. However, they won't go into the tax forms and the data fields that are used to determine my 2009 taxes.

This has never been an issue with the Basic version of Turbo Tax before, but for some reason they've changed it so that you need to buy the Deluxe version in order to take deductions for donations to charity. After you've already spent twenty plus on this version (Basic), you can upgrade to the Deluxe version for about forty dollars. Great, but I can now purchase the Deluxe edition for less than that at several discounters.

My attempts to get help via e-mail are unanswered. I could call a phone agent, but the indicated price is almost thirty dollars per call. My online queries are answered with answers specific to and referencing previous years' versions of Turbo Tax, but not 2009s.

I don't know who at Turbo Tax decided to make these changes, but they aren't doing their customers or the company any favors.

Then again, why do I care, I'm no longer going to be one of their customers. It gets one star because the review area won't let me give it zero stars.

This review is for TurboTax 2009 Deluxe for Federal Returns. Fortunately I live in Texas and there is no state income tax so I don't have to worry about the state portion.

TurboTax has had its share of issues but I came back to it because it does seem to be the best there is, but I'm knocking off a star because of the history of issues I've had with the program in previous years (like it not calculating tax correctly until I deleted some assets and then re-entered them). However, I was a little shocked to read that it requires 500MB of HD space PLUS up to 620MB more if Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 is not installed (Mac is only 255MB). Wow! That could be over 1GB to do taxes. How inefficient we have become!

I just installed TurboTax Fed Deluxe on a Vista x64 system (it's Jan 7th, 2010) and didn't have any problems. In fact, it installed very quickly considering that it claims it needs 500MB (but I do have an SSD drive that greatly speeds things up). TurboTax immediately found 4 updates and asked me if I wanted to update. The updates seemed to have installed just fine. "Uninstall or change a programs" says TurboTax 2009 is using 343MB. It says TurboTax 2008 (from last year and still on my computer) is "only" 162MB, so a BIG increase (but I wonder how accurate are these figures?). In any case, even 1GB of space is not a big requirement nowadays.

I will be working with this to help estimate my 2009 taxes before I pay may Jan 15th estimated tax payment.

NOTE: Deluxe will do a Schedule C just fine, but it may not provide as much help as the Home & Business version. If you have been doing taxes yourself for awhile then you might not need to pay the extra money for the additional help. The same with other editions, TurboTax encourages "overbuying" just to get "extra guidance", the "audit meter", and/or "It's Deductible". All forms are included with all the editions.

I will update this review as I continue to use the product.

Pros:
* All editions include all forms
* Works on 64-bit versions of Windows XP and higher (of course that includes Vista and Windows 7)
* On Jan 8th, I used it to help compute an estimate of the tax I will owe for 2009 to help determine what to pay for my last 2009 estimated tax payment and the program did not crash.
* I had a "flawless" install and update on Vista 64-bit - didn't ask for any serial or reg code
* Probably the best tax program there is
* Price includes federal E-File
* Deluxe version can do a Schedule C for the self-employed - but it doesn't provide as much guidance as the Home & Business edition

Cons:
* Not perfect (but how can US taxes ever be perfect)?
* Annoying "smart" input entries that try to format things like dates while you're still entering them
* Bad/complicated handling of SEP contributions
* Have encountered bugs in previous years that caused me to have to delete and re-enter assets
* Might take up to 1.12GB of HD space on Windows according to the system requirements

We have used Turbo Tax for over 8 years. This is the first year we have not purchased the Deluxe versions, since I am solely doing this to check my accountant's figures. My recommendation is to not bother with the basic version. Too many features are missing and it's functionality is very buggy. The import information from previous years is handled very poorly and the logically designed flow from one section to the next from previous years is now much more encumbered with unnecessary screens.

All that being said, I think the issue is the "basic" version, not Turbo tax itself. The Deluxe version has improved significantly over the years it would be very improbably that they would trash all that progress for this. Pay the extra and buy Deluxe. You may not watch all the videos, but the functionality will be worth it.

I purchased this because last year I used the H&R product, and the experience was only fair. I was hoping that Intuit was ahead of the game. I installed it and used it, and it told me I owed over $5000 in federal taxes. I couldn't believe this, so I downloaded the H&R Block product after going through it, it tells me I owe $200. That's more like it. Its not that I think the math is bad in Quicken, its just that the user interface is terrible. It didn't dig deep enough in the questionaire to get all of my inputs. If I were a first time tax filer, I may have assumed the product was correct and way overpaid. Save your time & money - use a different piece of software.

I've never written a review for anything before. This is the worst program I've encountered, ever. It should be simple to get this basic software up and running. Incredibly slow bloatware. Takes 3-5 minutes to load on a decent machine. At one point failed to load reporting errors on every attempt with no suggested resolution. Had to try all kinds of tricks including an uninstall and reinstall. Sounds like I was lucky to get it going again based on what some others using the more expensive versions were dealing with. Constantly beggging me to upgrade, finding errors on forms that I didn't even fill out (the 8914 form for Midwest displaced housing). Last time I will use TurboTax. I will do paper if I have to. Quicken 2010 is not much better. They forced me off of Quicken 2007 this year for a product that has no significant improvements and is slower. Way to go Intuit:(

I am an expert computer user, but it took me over an hour to install this on Vista. The Turbotax website was no help and their advice actually wasted my time. The fix for my problem was difficult to find and is almost impossible to explain.

My computer is only 1 year old and is very fast. They have overloaded this program with too many fancy screens and pictures, so the screens seem to come up slowly.

Below is my original review, which I'm modifying in the following way (and adding a second star): After writing the review, later in the day I went back to my Vista-based laptop, in which I'd left the TurboTax disk, and lo and behold! .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 had been installed. (I had abandoned it and walked away when the load had appeared to freeze, as it did on my XP desktop.) With that in place, I was able to go on and load TurboTax, which seems to work much as it has in previous years. But the BUYER BEWARE warning remains. Getting tax preparation software that requires a preliminary installation of other software that may or may not work in your computer is definitely taking a chance, especially since it's highly unlikely you'll be able to return the non-functional software for a refund.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I've used TurboTax for years, with generally good experiences, but this year's edition is literally useless, because I can't even get it to load. I've now tried five times, on two computers (one Vista, one XP), and followed the suggestions offered (disabling firewall, restarting system, downloading and running corrective software). The problem is that this year's version needs something called .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 in order to install the TurboTax software itself, and I can't get past this step. This is ludicrous. I'm giving up and going with another software provider. Reading the experiences of others, both on Amazon and on other feedback sites, I see I'm not alone. Bye-bye, TurboTax!

I didn't buy the Turbo Tax CD for 2009 (as I have for the last 10 years) because people reported problems with the CD. I downloaded the 2009 return from the Turbo Tax home page. It said I could use it for up to 5 returns as I had in the past with the CD. However this was not true. I could - IF I cleared my return and started over!! and then my daughter's information from last year could not be imported anyway. AND - when I filed this return, they filed it in PDF format which can not be used next year to transfer my information. I have had a terrible time with the on-line product and will not ever purchase any turbo tax product again.

I've used Turbo Tax for at least 10 years now. Each year it seems to develop even more catastrophic bugs. 2009's software is in a class all by itself. After preparing a return we were given a very late 1099 by Chase. (Who sends 1099s in mid March?) We needed to amend the return for the $16 1099, but upon trying to open the return we get a "your installation has changed, you need to reinstall".

The installer, predictably, won't repair the installation. Uninstalling takes nearly an hour on a modern computer, and the reinstall is taking at least that long. The original install took less than 5 minutes. Obviously there is something seriously wrong with the coding of this product.

I won't be using Turbo Tax again. If they can't code the software any better than this, how do I trust the tax advice/preparation?

I have been using Turbo Tax for many years, but the loading time for all the updates is very annoying along in itself, but with the Microsoft stuff you also have had to load the last couple of years it continues to be a pain. I think it was much better in years past when it was "load & run" right away. I may try something else next year.