Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

... 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.

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.

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.

I have used Quicken for a decade and TurboTax for most of the past few years, but I am seriously considering switching to MS Money and TaxCut. When trying to import my validated Quicken Premier H&B 2005 data into TurboTax Premier 2005 I invariably receive an error message and Quicken crashes. Spending hours on the phone with TurboTax's pleasant but unknowledgable "tech support" has been an exercise in futility. There is clearly a problem with the TT software, but the nice young people on the other end of the phone keep trying unsuccessfully to search their "knowledge base" for solutions and refuse to let me speak to anyone more senior and experienced or even give me info on where I can forward the error message to a programmer to look into it. Useless software and lousy tech support is a bad combination.

I ordered the Deluxe version first and after spending a whole day finally found out it had some kind of a glitch in it. It did't download "its deductible" due to some error. Well, I fixed the error using their web-site but now my Internet Explorer gives an error message every time I close it!

I found deluxe edition very uneasy: in state taxes it asked me to enter the portion of gross adjusted income of my spouse. I thought it was supposed to do that for me after I completed the federal part. So, I had to crunch in the numbers myself.

Then I decided to upgrade to Premier (if you buy Deluxe you can download premier for additional $30), hoping I can get more help with the "top" product. That one was even worse! My last year's assets from self-employment had to be included in this year. I took section 179 on my business computer last year, but when I tried to enter zero depreciation for this year the program kept telling me I had to depreciate it, even though I could not and indicated the amount of section 179 from last year. So, I entered $1. When I finally ran a federal tax check, the screen popped up saying I could not deduct the computer because I already depreciated it all last year. Dah! So, I had to put zero again. Why in the logic of the program didn't it let me do it before?

My overall impression from 2005 turbo tax (both deluxe and premier), it is a quick-job by whoever programmed it and it is terrible! I used turbo tax 2004 premier and thought it was a lot more helpful.

For the work I had to do myself, for the error messages it caused to my Explorer, and for two days of fighting the software glitches I give it two stars.

It's difficult to understate how amazing this product is. We used an accountant for years because my husband has a business, but I decided to try Turbo Tax on the advice of my computer programmer. Let me tell you, NEVER AGAIN for the silly accountant! He was charging us in the ridiculous neighborhood of $300, and giving us this silly bushel of worksheets to fill out. Absurd! If I have to fill out things anyway, I'll save money and let Turbo Tax do it for $55 versus $300. Plus, on the copies for our records, there were all these interesting worksheets which showed how things were figured, which I found helpful. But the big thing is that Turbo Tax found things Old Mr. Accountant did not. For example, one can deduct the business license fee we pay yearly, but he didn't. Or, tax preparer fees or tax software are deductible, and he didn't take that deduction. And he just plain WRONGLY entered in some figures from our business---and in the wrong categories!---which tells me for a fact that he only glanced at the stuff we gave him, if at all. So much for that clown. When I think of the money we wasted with that joker over the years...

Now, having said all that, there are a couple glitches I noticed, and if you learn from my mistakes you'll probably do fine the first time out.

1. I have an old laser printer, and when I sent my returns to it and logged out of Turbo Tax right away, some of the print on the forms typed over each other. When I ran it again and moved neither the mouse nor closed Turbo Tax until it COMPLETELY finished printing, it printed just fine.

2. Use the Walk Me Through All feature, DEFINITELY. I bet any of the other reviewers who had problems didn't use this feature. There's a tendency of course to skip down to specific categories, which I did the first time, but when I did that and then ran the Federal Review, Turbo Tax mistakenly noted down a Casualty Loss on our business which was wrong. The second time, when I used Walk Me Through All for ALL categories however, there were no errors whatsoever.

In short, this is a fabulous product.

I used turbo tax to do our farm and personal return for the first time this year. i was intimately involved in all record keeping anyway, so i decided to be courageous and try to file myself, instead of paying a tax preparer over $300. After reviewing all data entered, and checking for mistakes, I found Turbo Tax Premier edition very excellent. I kept double-checking against last year's return, which was done by a professional, and I found no inconsistencies. infact, Turbo tax helped find a few additional write-offs that our personal preparer hadn't told us about (and I didn't know about). Bottom line: our return looks very similar to last year's, and I'm certain it's correct. I'm very pleased with the cost savings, time savings, no electronic filing fee, ability to print multiple copies (for my kids' college financial aid stuff), and the tutorials that I read along the way, to be sure I was answering each question correctly. our return is 33 pages long, and I feel very confident that it's correct. If I can do this, anyone with a little energy and initiative can do the same! remember:read each section carefully and read explanations, incase there is a write-off waiting for you. don't blame turbox tax if something is missed...you gotta read each section and don't be rushed. you will be very pleased, if you take the time to do this correctly.

I've been using TurboTax since 1999. We run two small companies and my background is in accounting. Hence, I have a VERY hard time giving someone else my bookkeeping and taxes to do, since I really have a hard time letting go of the control! (I've really got to get over that!!) Each year, it seems that TurboTax does nothing but improve! I typically delay until the last minute and cram it all in on April 14, and if it wasn't for the simplicity fo this software, I'd be filing extentions every year. Really, gathering all your stuff together is the hardest part. This software does everything else for you.

Good: User interface is improved from prior versions
Bad: The 'Tax owed' and cover sheet instructions were incorrect

I started with a simple return, a filing for a dependent student with two part time jobs over the past year, and total income below the single dependent standard deduction. This should result in a refund of all federal taxes paid during the year, $18, on a simple 1040EZ filing.

On completing the return, the 'Federal Tax Due' panel in the upper left of the main window says "Federal Tax Due $271."

The printed cover sheet for the return says:
"Your federal form 1040EZ shows a tax due of $18."
It goes on with instructions on how to make out and attach the check for taxes due.

The actual 1040EZ shows an 18 dollar refund on line 11a, so I suppose we should give Intuit credit for that.

So, that's +1 for showing a correct answer on one form, -18 for telling someone with a refund to write and attach a check, and -271 for style.

Although the federal form was a breeze and without errors, I had several problems with the NJ state form...definitely bugs. There seemed to be errors in logic too. Certain choices would not "unclick" when I went back and changed them...no matter how much I tried, and some pages did not logically flow from question to confirm. I had no problems last year. The online help chat was absurdly slow and they didn't seem to understand my problem. I will probably have to do the state form on paper manually.

Also, the filing fees are higher this year. I may use HRBlock next year. Less hassle for not a lot more money.