[TriLUG] Ask TriLUG: Best Tax Filing Software?

[William Sutton]

And this is why, as a professional software engineer, who has worked on 
other people's crummy, buggy, code, I refuse to trust something as 
important as my financial safety to someone else's crummy, buggy, tax 
application.  All my taxes are done the old fashioned way: calculator, 
pencil, paper, and an awareness of my tax situation.  it's not difficult. 
It just requires a knowledge of what you are doing and a bit of care as 
you work the figures.

William Sutton

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Igor Partola wrote:

> I used H&R Block and TaxAct in the past. I like TaxAct better as it
> had support for multi-state returns (not sure if H&R added it this
> year). Worked beautifully on Chrome in Ubuntu and did not complain
> about wrong OS/browser as far as I recall.
>
> I did find a small error in their calculations that added up to about
> $30 more in my favor for an MA return, but the point was a bit
> ambiguous so I can see how their software did not ask the right
> question.
>
> <rant>The really sucky thing about these two pieces of software, which
> is probably because of the way taxes work more than anything, is that
> they do little to explain what applies to you and what doesn't. They
> will have text like "Write down the total amount of qualified expenses
> in this box". What are the qualified expenses? Well: "Under certain
> circumstances, they can include X, Y, and Z." What about my
> circumstances? No answer.</rant>
>
> Igor
>
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Alan Porter <porter at trilug.org> wrote:
>>
>> I always love these questions where someone asks a crowd for the
>> "best", when each person usually has only ONE.  That means each
>> response will either be "mine is great" or "mine sucks"... no
>> real way to compare.
>>
>> I doubt too many people have tried more than one tax software
>> this year.
>>
>>
>>
>> (Back on topic, I used TaxAct downloaded version, ran it on
>> WinXP in a virtualbox, e-filed federal and state, and got my
>> federal refund, still waiting for state.  It was all painless,
>> and I would go so far as to [☝Like].)
>>
>>
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> .
>>
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