Customer Reviews

West Federal Taxation 2008: Individual Income Taxes (with RIA Checkpoint and Turbo Tax Premier CD-ROM)

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

 

 

If your course requires this book, like mine did, go to the administrator of the school if you have to but talk them out of it.
The book frequently references other later chapters.
The book uses out of date tax forms, when the current years are available for free on irs.gov!
The book 'shortens' tables by grouping together years that are not really at the same rate, when the correct tables are available for free on irs.gov! It only warns you about this once in chapter 8, despite doing so all thru the book.
It spends way too much time on tax laws from prior years, and decades.

The quiz that the book provides for use with the chapters is bad!
It does not take into accout §167(k) which, admittedly only apply to 2003 and 2004, but those are the years given on the test.
It allocates on a 365 day basis for the leap year 2004 when the book (5 times!) told you to use 366 days if it is a leap year.
Some of the questions do not provide enough information to determine the correct answer.
There are also questions about items not mentioned in the book at all.

Not even the woman in class who DID taxes liked this book. It is difficult to imagine anyone it would be good for, unless maybe you needed to figure out how to depreciate a building you purchased in 1986.

This book was required by my professor so I had to buy it. It is probably one of the worst textbooks I have ever used. I found the writing poorly phrased and there were a few inconsistencies with the Code. (constructive receipt, etc)

This is an excellent book to learn taxation from. I used West taxation books before going on to a career at a big 4 accounting firm!
As far as the previous reviewer, who is obsessed with out of date charts and tax forms....she/he doesn't really understand taxation. Tax codes change year in and out. When these books are published they go with the latest possible information.
Besides, if your goal is simply to learn the basics of preparing taxes, why is it so necessary to have all the current years tax code info? Especially when the tax code doesn't "usually" change a whole lot from year to year.
Anyways, I have checked out other tax textbooks, and this is the one I'd recommend (being someone with SOME experience in this field)

This has to be one of the worst textbooks I've encountered:
- Poorly organized
- Poorly written
- The problems have little correlation to the content of the chapters.
- Very few graphics, although some of the graphics included are quite good, just not nearly enough.
- This book is written for savants that confuse memorization with learning.
- You're probably stuck with this text; urge your professors and departments to abandon this book. Your time is worth something!

I have to purchase this book for class and am a bit reluctant after reading the reviews. It seems as though the last reviewer knows or works for Hoffman. I am paying over $150 for a book and I therefore want up-to-date, well organized and well written information.

I had to buy this text since it was required by the instructor. This text is Poorly written, organized ,and very confusing. It covers same topics in several chapters but they are not consistent or well organized. It's very painfull that you have to go over several chapters to find one topic completely especially when the book is not well organized.

West Federal Taxation was a textbook for a class I was taking in preparation for the Certified Financial Planner's Exam. While I got an A in the course, it was no thanks to this text book. In some areas the text seemed to ramble and skip around a lot making the subject matter difficult to comprehend. Then again, we are talking about the bureaucratic nightmare that is the US Tax Code. I found I needed to supplement the material in this book with tutorial materials I found on the IRS website to gain better comprehension. If you're stuck using West Federal Taxation as a textbook I would suggest you become familiar with the IRS website to really learn the subject matter.

The book in and of itself is great. It is not the correct book for school. It does not come with turbo tax and RIA checkpoint cd's. You will need each of these student versions too complete your assignments. Thompson publishing offers the full version for about the same amount of money.

About 1 1/2 weeks after I purchased the book, I received an email from the seller stating that the book is out of stock and he will refund me.
I had to drop my class b/c of this and I will never order a school textbook on Amazon again.

The delivery of the book was fast, the book was in perfect conditions, BUT it did not include the CD (turbo tax softare) so just pay attention when ordering a book to make sure it comes with all the necessary.

But overall it was a good purchase.