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TurboTax
After many years of stubbornly sticking to paper forms, possibly augmented by a spreadsheet, I finally had sufficient presence of mind to get myself a copy of TurboTax this year.
On the whole, I like it! I was always worried that it'd be some multi-hour linear wizard interrogation, in which you're bolted to the rails and have to answer "no" to a thousand irrelevant questions about hog farm depreciation, but it's not like that; you can actually skip around to different parts of your tax return without destroying its state. If you abandon one of the little sub-interrogations in progress, you may have to replay two or three screens when you come back, but your previous answers are all there as the default. I realize that this kind of thing really ought to be considered a sign of minimal competence rather than something worthy of a medal, but it's amazing how much stuff out there doesn't rise to this level, especially on the web.
The Internet makes tax software much more pleasant, too; the way it can retrieve all your W-2 information directly from your employer is pretty cool. I'm sure that if I used Quicken it would be even more effortless.
As a Mac program, it's OK. The one major hiccup I noticed (unfortunately, it happened very early and made a first impression) was that when I clicked on the blue link for the recommended introductory "tour" of the software (actually an HTML file opened in an external browser), it opened it in the Classic version of Internet Explorer. That's not cool.
The major defects have more to do with the inertia of the bureaucracies involved. It's weird that E-filing taxes still involves multi-day approval turnarounds and fees to middlemen, but I don't think that's Intuit's fault.
On the whole, I like it! I was always worried that it'd be some multi-hour linear wizard interrogation, in which you're bolted to the rails and have to answer "no" to a thousand irrelevant questions about hog farm depreciation, but it's not like that; you can actually skip around to different parts of your tax return without destroying its state. If you abandon one of the little sub-interrogations in progress, you may have to replay two or three screens when you come back, but your previous answers are all there as the default. I realize that this kind of thing really ought to be considered a sign of minimal competence rather than something worthy of a medal, but it's amazing how much stuff out there doesn't rise to this level, especially on the web.
The Internet makes tax software much more pleasant, too; the way it can retrieve all your W-2 information directly from your employer is pretty cool. I'm sure that if I used Quicken it would be even more effortless.
As a Mac program, it's OK. The one major hiccup I noticed (unfortunately, it happened very early and made a first impression) was that when I clicked on the blue link for the recommended introductory "tour" of the software (actually an HTML file opened in an external browser), it opened it in the Classic version of Internet Explorer. That's not cool.
The major defects have more to do with the inertia of the bureaucracies involved. It's weird that E-filing taxes still involves multi-day approval turnarounds and fees to middlemen, but I don't think that's Intuit's fault.
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