TurboTax Premier 2005 with State Win/Mac [Old version]

by Intuit

Product Features

• Guides you through your federal and state returns with the most tax-saving help for investments, Schedule C businesses, and rental property.
• Provides help for reporting the sales of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and employee stock plans.
• Package includes ability to do US federal and ONE state return with additional states available for purchase through Intuit.
• Double-checks for your return for errors and even flags potential audit risks.
• Now includes ItsDeductible software to help you accurately value donated items (for a bigger deduction!).

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000CE9IAM
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 21, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,189 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #89 in Software > Tax Preparation

Product Description

TurboTax Premier Plus State guides you through your federal and state returns with the most tax-saving help for investments, Schedule C businesses, and rental property. Provides help for reporting the sales of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and employee stock plans. Offers expert advice for Schedule C businesses deductions. And gives money-saving tips for reporting rental property income and deductions. Double-checks for your return for errors and even flags potential audit risks. Plus, now includes ItsDeductible software to help you accurately value donated items (for a bigger deduction!). Package includes ability to do US federal and ONE state return with additional states available for purchase through Intuit.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yes, We're All Familiar with TurboTax ...., January 9, 2006

By 

Bob in Dayton "Bob" (Dayton, OH) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: TurboTax Premier 2005 with State Win/Mac [Old version] (CD-ROM)

... but just be aware that electronic filing fees are extra with this product, as opposed to TT's biggest competitor, Tax Cut. For obvious reasons, this is not publicized.

62 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A GOOD TAX SOLUTION, December 22, 2005

By 

VAL ODUENYI (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TurboTax Premier 2005 with State Win/Mac [Old version] (CD-ROM)

Indeed, this premier edition of "Turbo Tax Total Tax Solution" lives upto its billing. No particular software (currently on sale) can provide 'total solution' for all the various tax problems that may arise now and then; but, this one went a long way. It is simply among the most dependable choices at the moment. Intuit has listened to the critics of the last edition, and has done a better job with this one. Whether you are using it as an individual or in a small business environment, it has more than enough capabilities in rendering solutions.
In fact, one of the most prominent new features, which users of previous editions will notice here, is the newly included deductable tax feature. This will assist users to take care of all tax-exempted incomes and/or expenditures. Also, this edition seems much more stable and robust than the previous one. Although, I must inform you that it is as well, more memory-hungry. Please, note that anything less than 512 MB of DDR memory will not render a decent performance: unless you have no other window open (at the same time when you use this software). On the positive side however, any corporate investor, who deals with equity, bonds, and real-estate stocks will find a number of interesting features in this edition. The same goes for students of finance, banking, marketing, and accounting.
Intuit deserve commendations for improving on the last edition. However, I would use this forum to advise them to make future editions of this software less memory-hungry. Doing so will ensure that this capable tool does not drastically slow-down users' computers.
The software runs on both Windows and Mcintosh operating systems. Its functional tools are quite easy to learn and master. It is also compatible with most popular business software like: Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Money, Intuit's Quicken, OpenOffice.org Calc, and StarOffice Spreadsheet.
In conclusion, I must admit that this is a nice software for handling tax issues. It is very stable, and rarely crashes. The only problem I noticed is that it is unusually memory-hungry.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Several improvements, but not as good as last year's version, February 16, 2006

By 

Your Average Gadgeteer (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TurboTax Premier 2005 with State Win/Mac [Old version] (CD-ROM)

Overall, Turbotax Premier is still a very useful program, but it has lost some of its luster. On the plus side, it has the following going for it:

-It is still easy to use and simplifies your taxes. Turbotax Premier guides you through even complex returns, including joint returns with multiple Schedule Cs.

-It now includes ItsDeductible, which sold separately last year, for free. This nifty little program stores all of your charitable donation information and provides valuations for your non-cash donations. It will save you a bundle if you donate clothing.

-Although somewhat hidden, (why, I don't know) ItsDeductible now gives you the option of storing your 2006 charitable donations online on its web site throughout the year for free. Presumably, when you get around to doing you '06 taxes you will then automatically download this info into you ItsDeductible 2006 program.

-It includes a free state download. Last year you had to buy the state program separately and send in a refund coupon. Intuit has (thankfully) decided to just go ahead and bundle the state program.

-The 2005 version is better at deciding which sections to skip. Previous versions were not very good at deciding what to skip and what to go over, in my experience.

On the downside, this year's Turbotax Premier has several drawbacks that make is somewhat less user-friendly than last year's version:

-Navigation, as other reviewers have noted, is too linear and makes the program a drag to use if you need to update specific items. ***There is a work-around, however.*** Go to the "Tools" menu and select "See Topic List." You will then see the old navigation window from last year, which allows you to jump to specific areas of your return. Why Intuit hid this feature away, I don't know.

-The one-click updates feature is buggy. I had problems with it on two computers. On one of them, it would hang after downloading 12% of ANY update, including the free state product. I had to disable Zone Alarm, NAV, and the Windows firewall, then click over to a part of the return that would trigger a download to get it to work (even then, it wouldn't work by selecting the menu item directly).

-The IRA section doesn't tell you up front if you are eligible for a Roth or traditional IRA. It first asks you if you have made or plan to make any IRA contributions, and only later in the filing process does it tell you that (surprise!) you can't make contributions to an IRA. You then have to manually go back and erase your IRA contributions (if you haven't already made them, that is!) to set things right. This is poor planning on Intuit's part. The program should first crunch the numbers to see if you are eligible, and only then ask if you want to fund an IRA.

-There is no coupon for one free federal e-filing. The price has not gone up, but you won't get it for free. TaxCut still has free e-filing, by the way.

Out of morbid curiosity (or a love of pain, I don't know) I also used a free version of TaxCut basic to prepare the same return (a relatively "simple" full 1040 with itemized deductions). While it's not fair to compare the basic version of TaxCut to the high-end, expensive Turbotax Premier, I do think that Turbotax is still somewhat easier to use and uses more approachable language to explain tax issues. In addition, Turbotax has a much wider selection of downloadable 1099s and W-2s than TaxCut.

I know some reviewers have experienced calculation errors with Turbotax. All I can say is that both Turbotax and TaxCut gave the exact same results for the return I prepared.

As for the state version, I used Turbotax to prepare my VA return but then used Virginia's very good (and free) Web filing site to submit my return. Both Turbotax and the Virginia e-filing site churned out very similar figures. The differences between the two resulted from Turbotax's rounding off all numbers to the nearest dollar, while Virginia's site kept track of every penny. If you want to save yourself the state e-filing fee, you may want to check with your state tax agency to see if it offers free e-filing on its own. It's a bit more work, but you can use the state return prepared by Turbotax as a cheat sheet.