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★★★★☆
Best Choice of several less than ideal choices
I've used Tax Software for 20 years... having moved to TurboTax 10 years ago when the Kiplinger(H&R Block) product just couldn't keep up.
Last year's hidden change to remove support for Schedule C & D caused me to try out competing products again; however, in the end, even though I dislike the way Intuit does business, their product is better than the competition.
Pros:
- Works like previous years (not counting last year), where it fully supports the normal Small Business items and the Investment Sale Download and Reporting.
- Is better than any of the competition.
Cons:
- The company's web site specifically HIDES the fact that you can complete schedules C & D with the Deluxe version. I consider this dishonest. Rather than highlight the differences in capabilities between the Deluxe version and the Premium version, they simply tell you you have to have the Premium version (when, in fact, you don't have to have it)
- When you use the software, when you try to work on schedules C & D the program repeatedly tries to tell you you need the more expensive version.
- The company treats customers badly. When the Vanguard program was eliminated, they made an offer of a $20 discount for the Federal Version; however, if you take them up on that offer they actually charge you $15 more than if you just bought it here. It is insulting that they pretend to offer a discount that costs more than the normal version.
Like a lot of people I bought Deluxe last year, found that it wouldn't get the job done because they had removed the required forms (D and C), so then purchased H&R Block's... that worked, kind of, but was a pretty bad product. Then, the support people upgraded me to the Home & Business... I turned in a LOT of bugs during the filing season...
- This year, again, several forms are not available in a timely manner, so you cannot use the product as desired. People who seriously prepare and manage their taxes want to be able to figure out "most" of the tax calculations by December 15th in order to do tuning, Roth Conversions, etc. But, even though a lot of the forms are unchanged or nearly unchanged from last year, they are not making those forms available early enough to use for tax planning.
- Intuit has not taken seriously the testing necessary for customers who had to change between the Deluxe version to the Home/Business Version and now import this year back to the Deluxe version. The import from last year's Home/Business into this year's Deluxe appears to have some strange results.
Summary - I'm using this product as the best of the choices; however, I don't like the way the company does business and how it treats its customers.
UPDATE - January 4th, 2016 - Starting in mid-2015, every update of TurboTax 2014 had a link to "what changed" that didn't work. I turned in multiple problem reports to Intuit, which were all ignored. Now, for TurboTax 2015, EVERY update to the software, to include the one "today", has links for what changed that doesn't work. Intuit's inability to tell us what changed is very concerning. If they don't resolve this issue, the 2015 version will be my last I use from them...even though the HR Block product is not as good, I am unwilling to use a product from Intuit where they change it without telling you what changed.
December 2015 · Software · verified purchase