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| TaxCut 2005 Premium + State [Old Version] | ![TaxCut 2005 Premium + State [Old Version]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RV3ZJ4R4L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | From: HR Block Financial
Category: Software
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $21.49
You Save: $28.50 (57%)
New (2) Used (2) from $14.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 3394
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Nt 4, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows Xp, Windows 2000
Media: CD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.3
MPN: 1316603-05
Model: 735290101648
UPC: 735290101648
EAN: 0735290101648
ASIN: B000BM67XQ
Release Date: November 22, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: WE SHIP DAILY AND FAST WITH USPS MAIL
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| Customer Reviews:
 buggy, poor customer service April 7, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My experience is consistent with some of those above and with those posting on the Deluxe product as well: the product has a lot of simple bugs, poor instructions, and unhelpful customer service. Here are some of the problems I noticed:
1) many things are not covered by the interview - they ask you to open up the form and enter everything yourself
2) the online update gives misleading messages (customer service said there would be a California update, but the Update tool said there were "none planned"). Also, it's now April, and the Update tool is still saying that a Federal update will be available "in February" and that I should check back then!
3) There seems to be no way to take a foreign tax deduction instead of a credit. The interview mentions that both are allowed, but in practice if you have foreign taxes listed on a 1099, it requires you to file a foreign tax credit form (it fails in the error check if you don't).
4) Worst of all, when I went to e-file today the IRS rejected the form, due to missing entries on two forms: 8801 (credit for prior year AMT) and 8606 (for a Roth IRA conversion). These are not lines that I'm supposed to fill in - they are simple calculations that should be done automatically by the software, and in fact the boxes are grayed out to indicate that, but nothing was put there and the TaxCut error check passed. The message from TaxCut tells you that you have to manually override them to put the correct values in, and that you cannot e-file as a result!
As an engineer and a programmer, it seems like a poor job was done on the software and it hasn't been tested nearly enough. When you email the support center you get responses that suggest the person responding hasn't really read your message, and is simply cutting and pasting from something on their screen (which is OK, but the responses weren't relevant). The chats are a little better.
I just got back from buying a copy of TurboTax Premier, which is a lot more expensive but I'm sure it will work. I'll never make this mistake again.
(I gave this two stars instead of one because it might work if your taxes are simpler than mine. On the other hand, given that it's "Premium", maybe the expectations should be higher?)
 Businesses beware! April 3, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As mentioned previously, do not forget to manually adjust schedule C to add your inventory levels to complete the cost of goods section. The phone support disconnected me, and online chat went round and round with me until I was convinced they had no idea what they were talking about. I used TurboTax last year, our first year of business, and their program prompted me on that issue, thankfully. I stood to lose $1000 of refund without it!
 Pretty Good, but needs a support FORUM! April 2, 2006
The software will NOT accept my W-2 information and permit me to E-file. The error check gave me a warning that my social security taxes were more than 50% of my TAXABLE FEDERAL INCOME.
Unfortunately... the warning turned into an ERROR when I attempted to EFILE.
I cannot change my W-2 therefore I have to paper file. The TAXCUT support site acknowledges that we will get a warning in this situation when we do an error check and I think that is a desirable action, but it also says that it is okay and we can continue normally with the warning in place. NOT SO! It refuses to E-FILE and says it is because of the social security amounts on the W-2!
The support chat person Joselito(?) told me that my social security INCOME was fouling up the amount of my IRA deduction. (Obviously someone does not know what a 401k OR W-2 form is.) I gave up on that.
AFTER writing a less-favorable review here on Amazon, I decided to look at TURBOTAX and guess what! They have a support FORUM with lots of great information and THE ANSWER! #1-Turbotax has the same "PROBLEM". The IRS does not accept E-Filed returns with a W-2 like mine. (It's legal. It's correct. But it can't be e-filed.) WHY DOESN'T TAXCUT host a forum where we can find these things out?
I've used Taxcut for TEN YEARS!! And every year it gets a little tougher as my financial picture gets a little more complicated. I've also had to learn a lot of new interfaces and "looks" over the years but it has worked for me.. JUST DON'T GO LOOKING FOR A LOT OF SUPPORT!
Worthless! One star is too many. April 2, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I got this software hoping to find some deductions I didn't know I had earned, or at least that I would save some time doing my taxes. In the end, this software come up with exactly the same numbers I would have gotten doing it myself, and it actually took longer to do my taxes, thanks to a number of functional problems in the software:
* It calculated my tax WRONG!! It made an error looking up my income in the tax tables and was $25 off estimating my tax. Here's the most fundamental function of the software and it gets it wrong (even after the required software update). The one good thing I can say about this is that it did let me override the number on the form. This prevented me from filing electronically, but it did let me print the form, which saved me the trouble of having to do it all by hand after having done it on the computer.
* Out of the box, the software did not work, and required a hotfix update. This is not unusual for commercial software, and tax laws change frequently, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, the hotfix feature did not work either, it repeatedly failed to get and install the hotfix, so I had to go to their website, find, download, and install the update file.
* The user interface is a counterintuitive hybrid of a wizard that asks a bazillion questions in the top-half of the screen, and the tax forms on the bottom half of the screen. The wizard is where you actually entered the information. As long as you went though it sequentially, it worked reasonably well, but God help you if you ever had to go back and add a deduction you forgot about, or tweak some other value. The navigation buttons don't always take you where you thought you would go, and on several occasions, I found myself going in circles.
* At one point, I wanted to view the 1040 form, to see how a change I had made would affect a specific entry. Well, that should be the bottom half of the screen. Right? No. Sometimes it is, but most times it displays whatever schedule the top half of the user interface pertains to. I hunted around for 10 minutes before I got what I was looking for (it's available on a pull-down menu).
* The DeductionPro software that comes with TaxCut is even more worthless than TaxCut. It was supposedly free, sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
* H&R Block supposedly offers a money back guarantee on this software, but the fine print says, "...we'll refund the purchase price, less shipping, handling, sales tax and any rebate you receive on the software." Considering they gave you MS Money in the deal, I'm guessing you'll end up with next to nothing back if you do ask for a refund, Im going to try anyway.
No good for partial-residency.... Terrible Customer Service... No PDF options. Will use TurboTax next year. April 1, 2006
There was a bug in the Maryland interview questions for partial-resident returns. Even if you entered in that you were only a Maryland resident for the beginning part of the year, it prompted you to specify which MARYLAND county you lived in on 12/31/2006. In the end, you just had to put in the county you lived in regardless of whether or not you were still living there at the end of the year.
How did I figure this out? I played around with my answers, printed out the resulting forms, waded through all the paper, and through experimentation figured out the answer.
Before doing this, I tried to call customer service. The first time, after being rerouted and put back into queue 3 times and hung up on once, I finally made contact and was told that my case was being escalated. I was given a case number and was told that I would be contacted in 48 business hours. Two weeks later, no reply, no messages, nothing. I tried calling again, and I was again rerouted and spoke with TWO representatives that were clueless about what a case number was; each time I had to re-explain my case. I was finally transfered to a "senior technical representative" who basically said he would call me back because when I attempted to open up my tax return, I received an exception error pop-up that I never saw before and it required me reinstall my state software. I left work early to be home when he was supposed to call two days later... only he never called. I waited and then I called twice, and two lower representatives both told me that they would have the senior rep call me back. Only, I never got a call back. The final call I made was at 8pm central time... only I got a recorded message this time telling me to call back at their normal business hours... which was until 10pm central time. A few days later I received an email, with no reply address, stating that I needed to update my state software... which was not the case because I already had and when I attempted to again, I was informed through the program that no more updates were available.
After getting fed up with the phone calls, I waited a day to cool off and tried the online help through their website. This was no good either... As I was trying to explain my bug with the Maryland state interview questions, I was told that, "My apologies, but TaxCut has no bugs." The representative then disregarded my issue, instead repeatedly giving me instructions on how to efile my state returns (which was not my issue at all and I was clueless as to why she kept trying to explain this). I then asked a question about a federal worksheet form that I needed to include on my other state return that was mentioned on the final checklist provided by TaxCut... again, no answer. Even if they COULD clarify which form they were referring to in their checklist, I wouldn't be able to use the taxcut forms because I efiled my federal form, and when you do that, you can't print out anything except forms that say "not for filing" on it... and they said I shouldn't send those in... After about 4 representatives were dropped from the conversation due to technical difficulties, and about 2 hours later, I was told to call the IRS number at 1-800-829-1040, which I could have looked up. So, was I helped? No. Hopefully, the IRS ppl will be able to help me.
I filed with TurboTax last year (wonderful program by the way... I filed in under 2 hours tops last year), and they allowed me to save my returns in pdf versions to print out wherever I wanted to. Taxcut doesn't allow you to do that. I don't have a printer at home. So, what I did was install a postscript printer driver, printed to file, and opened up the postscript versions on my work computer to print them out. This seemed pretty round about, considering that pdfs are so user-friendly.
To sum up:
- TaxCut isn't so good with partial-resident returns.
- TaxCut customer service is unhelpful and unreliable.
- TaxCut doesn't allow you to print in pdfs.
- USE TurboTax! That's what I'll be going back to next year.
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