Customer Reviews

TurboTax Deluxe + eFile 2008 (Old Version) [DOWNLOAD]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I reluctantly bought TurboTax again this year because I valued the ability of carrying forward previous years' data. I have used Supporting Details extensively. Each year, the TurboTax "improvements" keep sliding backwards. This year, when carrying forward supporting details, they are shuffled - last line first, first line last. Other annual improvements have been no better. I dropped buying the state forms this year because I end up doing them on TurboTax and then going to an accountant to straighten things out. Next year, I'll organize my paper, and go straight to the accountant. A once wonderful product that has moved to mediocrity. Sad.

I have used TT since the 1980s when it was on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks probably before some of these so called programmers were even born.
2008 Deluxe is the biggest piece of s**t I have ever seen.
Cannot access forms directly, constantly leads you to wrong places, [...]. I designed and built computer systems and also wrote a lot of software and whoever the morons that are now running the asylum are they need to try to USE the product they designed. Most software engineers never bother to look at what the user has to do to use the program. What a shame TT has joined the ranks of the utterly stupid and incompetent.

In 2007 I bought from Office Max, Turbo Tax premier version for about $60 It included the state files. The program was easy to use. It was not able to import data from my financial institutions.

In 2008 I bought Amazon, Turbo Tax Deluxe version for $40. One nice feature is that it can automatically find updates and download a better version and new forms. So Turbo Tax asked me $30 for Premier version in order to be able to process investments. Then it wanted $40 do download the state forms. Then it wanted $20 to send the state e-file.

The program has bugs: sometimes, it incorrectly computes the sale price of shares, so you have complete the whole procedure and then start again and fix the price for one share. I also had trouble sending by e-file because of a strange error: "The tax id number is estimated". Well it was estimated correctly. I could not understand why the program had an issue with that field. I modified it several times, I saved the file, I closed the program, I opened it again, with no success.

I did not find anything in the Help menu to fix this error. By trial and error, it happened to do a right-click on the field and there was an interesting option: "Unmark estimated". So basically the field has this "estimated" flag and if it is set to true, the program refuses to e-file. So I un-marked the field and the program was able to complete the e-file successfully.

While such a flag could be useful in certain situations, not telling the customer from the beginning about it, gives them a hard time.

I made the mistake of buying this product without realizing that it did not have state forms included. It was my mistake, but the different versions of Turbo Tax can cause confusion: Download vs. CD; Deluxe vs. Premier; state vs. non-state. Even though it was my mistake, I was aggravated by the excessive fee to download the state forms from within the product as compared with the few extra dollars I would have spent if I had bought the state version. Luckily, Virginia has an online site to submit state taxes, which only took me an hour to complete. In the end, TurboTax lost the $20 that I would have normally paid to e-file the state taxes. Ultimately their pricing folly allowed me to find their biggest competitor: the free state website.

This product is for people who (like myself) live in one of several states that do not have income tax. It is actually HARDER to find than the versions that come with a basically free state return, so anyone that purchases this and needs the state as well only have themselves to blame. I'd actually rate this as a 4, since I feel like it should be cheaper for being both a digital download ( with no packaging/shipping costs etc) but the unfair reviews above warrant an extra star.

TurboTax is probably the gold standard for tax preparation software. I live in a State with no state income tax so I have never used that add-on but I've used TurboTax every year since it came out and it stays current with tax code changes and seems to get easier to use and look up additional information. It was fine using it for my business schedules but getting the Home and Business version is better for helping with such things as depreciation and inventory. I had to study the rules and to complete the exclusion for Foreign earned income which I thought would be more automated. That part was updated for tax year 2010 at least in the Home and Business version. Buying an older version saved considerably through Amazon as compared to buying it directly from Intuit. If you keep fairly good records, completing a tax return and checking for errors even with multiple businesses and special situations like foreign income takes less than an hour. If you know what schedules you need you can go to them in sequence, otherwise you can go step-by-step through questions. It imports your prior year tax returns and if you use Quicken or Quick Books, it imports everything and it's pretty straight forward to complete the Tax Return. I will continue buying Turbo Tax in future years. Oh, one nice thing it does, is it helps you file quarterly estimated tax returns for the following year. So for example, the 2010 TurboTax completes the 2010 Tax return and the 4 quarterly returns that are due or will be due in 2011. As soon as you can close out your books in Quick Books for 2011, you can run TurboTax 2011 when it comes out.

The product was worth it! I did receive more than this product said I would. Although, since it was additional money, I would recommend this product.

I tried to amend my 2008 return, and wasted my time. It was so easy a few years ago.

[4/12/09 UPDATE: Adding my review of the TT Deluxe product in this thread in case anyone is thinking about downloading this software at the last minute before tax deadline.]

[3/12/09 UPDATE: FOR ANYONE WHO DEDUCTS MORTGAGE INTEREST AND IS WONDERING WHETHER AND HOW THEY OWE AMT, PLEASE READ THE COMMENTS ATTACHED TO THIS REVIEW FOR CURRENT STATUS AND INFORMATION REGARDING INTUIT'S HANDLING OF THIS MAJOR SOFTWARE ERROR THAT CAUSES FORM 6251 NOT TO BE GENERATED/FILED AND POSSIBLE UNDERREPORTING OF TAXES OWED.]

* * *

[2/18/09 REVIEW:] I am an attorney and my wife is a tax attorney, and we have spent hours reverse engineering and confirming TurboTax software problems (with dummy numbers) last night to determine ONCE AGAIN that the brain trust at TurboTax is giving us defective product. I have used TurboTax since 2005 (only for the spread sheet aspects), and, now that the IRS has made free online filing spreadsheet software available regardless of income (check out the new "Fillable Forms" at the IRS Free File website), THIS WILL OFFICIALLY BE THE LAST YEAR I USE TURBOTAX. Hooraahhh! Every year I find numerous errors in their software (from mortgage interest deduction, to carry-overs, to properly completing non-cash charitable donations per IRS requirements, to calculating AMT credits, and now to yet another problem described here), and like many of you guys, every year that I write in about a problem, I get one of their generic, inane replies from some low-level non-attorney who knows nothing about the tax code. Like years past, I spend more time beta-testing their software bugs than actually doing my tax return. This year, I easily computed and input all my data for our 2008 return, but I can not get TurboTax to generate (unless I start overriding everything . . . which can lead to other problems) this year's requisite Form 6251 for the AMT so that I can actually e-file my return. Unlike most people, we do our returns manually per the paper IRS forms, instructions, publications, and tax regs (again my wife is a tax lawyer), and then we input it all in TurboTax to e-file it . . . and like this year, I ALWAYS find major problems in their software. For example, thousands of Americans are claiming a mortgage interest deduction on Schedule A that they are not entitled to due to the way TurboTax incorrectly distinguishes between home equity indebtedness and home acquisition indebtedness in the context of, e.g., refinanced primary mortgages that include a cash-out component, as well as due to the lack of direction in their menus about the need to compute average mortgage balances. TurboTax's interview just generically refers you to the IRS publication(s), which everyone tells me they do not have time to do (they tell me that's why they bought the software to begin with, so that they do NOT have to look at the Pubs, Regs, or Code) . . . even my attorney friends who use Turbo don't refer to the tax Pubs to figure out their average mortgage balances, and say instead that they simply claim everything on their 1098 Mortgage Interest Statements (which is wrong!). TurboTax could easily fix this longstanding gap in their software by hiring a tax attorney and programmer to add the same sort of interview questions and worksheets that are in Publication 936. But for some reason, after years of making this complaint, they still fail to do this. Seperate and aside from this problem, now I see this year, another huge software bug (described below) that makes me wonder how many filers with mortgage interest are not including Form 6251 for the AMT (even if they do not owe AMT, the form must still be attached/e-filed in many cases). As I say to all my friends, if you don't learn the basics of the tax code and check your taxes manually at least somewhat, then you will be in trouble if you solely rely on any version of TurboTax . . . as I have found that TurboTax has done my taxes wrong every year (2005, 2006, 2007, and now 2008). [This is absolutely true. Every year, my wife and I have had to override and/or spend days complaining to Intuit about necessary patches, etc.] Of course, I hope everyone here realizes that all these people that say "TurboTax is Easy and Great" in their 5-star reviews are often the worst type of resources to rely on for an assessment of whether this software is worth your money (and more importantly, time). . . as, how can these cheerleaders possibly be in a position to critique whether the software works correctly if they don't understand what is supposed to happen tax-wise in a given situation? If you read through ALL the reviews, you will often see the most critical reviews coming from people who evidence some tax knowledge on what TurboTax is supposed to do . . . these people seem far more reliable to me. Many of these 5-star reviews can be completely discounted by the fact that they were written by people who never had a CPA or lawyer verify that their alleged "so easy, so simple, so wonderful" tax returns were actually done correctly by the software's interview. As I said above, now that there is no income requirement for completing your return online at the IRS website with their free tax spreadsheet Fillable Forms (brand new option this year!), I will be saying GOODBYE to wasting $30-$60 a year on this software that my wife and I have to beta-test for days. And you can too. Trust me, as an attorney, your best options for your taxes are: (1) learn the tax code just enough so that you know what should happen tax-wise during each set of interview questions (and if you do that, then you can now use the IRS "fillable forms" and e-file for free at the IRS website); or (2) pay a little more and use a CPA or attorney. As your instinct probably tells you, no software program alone is going to magically do this stuff correctly for you; even worse is that it does it wrong after so much wasted time in so many cases. The wasting of so much of one's time to beta-test this product is just outrageous. [And waiting to buy the software is just no good, as, in year's past, I was still receiving patches right up to the filing deadline in April!] Completely unfair that this product continues to dominate the market when the IRS/Treasury should simply do-away with all the lobbying Intuit does here in Washington DC each year, and instead should expand its "fillable forms" with a set of free basic interview questions like Virginia and other states make available online.

As far as the specifics of the problem on the Form 6251 not being done correctly, if you are interested, here is my detailed post about this debacle on a thread on TurboTax's Live Community. [YOU SHOULD ALSO READ THE COMMENTS ATTACHED TO THIS REVIEW FOR MY TAKE AS OF 3/12/09 ON HOW EGREGIOUS THIS ERROR HAS BEEN, AS WELL AS COMMENTARY AND OPINION ON INTUIT'S HANDLING OF IT TO DATE.]

Live Community post follows:

FORM 6251 not being generated!
MAJOR ERROR IN TURBOTAX DELUXE 2008!!

My wife and I are attorneys (she is a tax attorney), and once again your software is saying I do not need to submit a Form 6251 when in fact I am REQUIRED by the Form 6251 Instructions to attach a Form 6251 to my return (even though I do not owe AMT this year, the form must still be generated and attached).

I am required to attach the Form 6251 because, per the Instructions: "The total of Form 6251, lines 9 through 28, is negative and line 32 would be greater than line 35 if you did not take into account lines 9 through 28." In my case, all of our home mortgage interest is deductible under the regular tax this year, because all of our home equity debt (which happens to be used for investment) is less than 100K; thus, we do not need to complete the TurboTax questions (under the regular tax) for Investment Interest Expense (i.e., because we already are claiming all of this interest as home mortgage interest, we can not and do not need to take it again as investment interest expense simply because the proceeds happen to be used for investment). Thus, TurboTax correctly does not generate a Form 4952 for the regular tax.

However, under the AMT regime, I need to enter values on lines 4 and 9 of Form 6251 to add the interest on the home equity debt back into my AMT income and then subtract it out of my AMT income as investment interest expense. I realize this is essentially a wash, but it does not exclude me from the requirement of filing the Form 6251. WHY IS TURBOTAX FAILING TO GENERATE AND E-FILE A FORM 6251 IN THIS CASE? Also, TurboTax should be generating a Form 4952-AMT (for my reference only of course), but IT IS NOT GENERATING ONE EITHER.

Clearly, TurboTax's inquiry can't handle a situation where you are not claiming investment interest expense in the regular tax world (because it all qualifies as home equity debt), but then you need to claim it in the AMT tax world. PLEASE FIX THIS ASAP.

TURBOTAX NEEDS TO GENERATE BOTH THE FORM 6251 AND FORM 4952-AMT IN SITUATIONS LIKE MINE.

Follow-up Message from me to TurboTax programmers:

You guys screwed up! Why do I have to beta-test your software every year!?!?!?

I just sent you a detailed problem about Form 6251 not being generated. It turns out that at the beginning of the AMT questionnaire, there is an error in your Form 6251 worksheet programming. In response to the AMT question "Tell Us About Your Mortgage Interest," if I input a lower value for "Interest Paid on an Eligible Mortgage" (as compared to the home mortgage interest value from my regular tax Schedule A), then your software does not enter any "home mortgage interest adjustment" in the worksheet (and on line 4 of a Form 6251). Thus, no Form 6251 is being generated when in fact it is REQUIRED per the instructions to the Form 6251.

Also, in prior years, there was always a question in TurboTax that would then ask you to adjust for any investment interest expense you might be able to claim under the AMT if any of this above ineligible interest happened to be used for investment (and therefore could be subtracted out on Line 9 of Form 6251).

Shame on you TurboTax. I can't even correctly file my return this year until you fix this. I wonder how many people have already filed their taxes without Form 6251, even though they were required to do so (regardless of whether they owe AMT, the Form 6251 must still be attached in these cases).

As a reviewer with out the internet and self preparer, they still do not allow you do yor state return with out first accessing the internet. I had the samr problem last year and I am frustrated. I think next year, I will go back to doing it by hand and save money. Now they wanted to charge a fee to print returns. Lets get real, they should make Turbo Tax for the mass not only those lucky few who are able to afford the internet.

While I realize the internet is here and I fully support it, not all of us have access yet. What about us.

Alos when you go to print this year's copy, you get a "Not Finalized, do not Mail" how can this be. The form stays the same each year and the can update the information by November when the last tax issues are presented and voted on in congress.

I think I am going to try tax cut next year.