Rating: 
Summary: TaxCut just as good as previous TurboTax
Review: I have been a loyal TurboTax user for over 5 years, and I had planned on using it this year. However, after reading the many reviews on TurboTax this year, I decided to try TaxCut. I found it just as easy to use as TurboTax. It transferred all of my information from last year's TurboTax without problems, and I was able to transfer my financial information from Quicken 2002 as well. I would give it 5 stars except that for any tax help, there is a fee. I don't think TurboTax charges a fee for e-mail questions, just telephone assistance with tax questions. I will probably use TaxCut next year. TacCut Deluxe was also less expensive than TurboTax Deluxe.
Rating: 
Summary: The worst tax software I've ever used !
Review: I have been doing my taxes via computer programs since they have been available. This is certainly the worst program that I have ever used. It doesn't navigate easily. Last year I used TurboTax. With that program all you have to do is highlight the line of the tax return or worksheet, double-click and you have a range of options. Not with TaxCut...go to the pulldown, jump to form then if you want instruction use another section of the program to pull that up - what a hassle!!!
With TaxCut simple questions aren't addressed. For instance, we refinanced our home loan and I wanted to know the tax treatment for settlement charges. Do you think that in a record year of refinancing that simple question was answered? NO. There was a link that didn't work. So off to the IRS website I had to go. I got suckered into the state program because it is free to TaxCut Deluxe buyers. IT DOESN"T WORK for Michigan! There is a form that automatically generated to calc the Homestead credit. It doesn't apply to us and it wanted data entered. I tried to delete this non-relevant form - couldn't. I tried to fill in the missing information - couldn't. Basically, the state program is worthless. I am going to get a form from the state and file the old fashioned way and save myself alot of time in the process. I don't know who the people are that think that this is a good program? Perhaps they work for H&R Block?
Rating: 
Summary: If time and money are more important to you
Review: After reading the negative reviews about TurboTax on Amazon, I decided to purchase TaxCut this year. It installed ok, but the interview questions were not easy to understand and the "Help" was not helpful either. After spending many hours entering my data, my return was full of errors. I decided to go back to TurboTax. It took me less time to enter the data and also found deductions (such as CA vehicle registration VLF) that were not part of the TaxCut interview. If time and money are more important to you than activation scheme and spyware, I would recommend TurboTax.
Rating:
Summary: Has Some Problems
Review: My kids had investment income which generated the "kiddie tax". TaxCut has me running in 5 different directions with different forms to compute this. The problem is I'm not sure it's correct. I will probably have to see a tax accountant to ensure this has been properly computed. Seems to me this program should be able to handle any type of tax problem.
Rating:
Summary: Read this before buying!!
Review: ######################################################################## Mike Kristovich, PivX Security Advisory MK#002B Date: January 10, 2003 Application: H&R Block Tax Cut
Version: All versions up to current.
Bug: Information in saved Tax Returns discloses Social Security
Number, Full Information, and more..
Risk: Can allow for identity theft, information disclosure
Author: Mike Kristovich, Security Researcher, PivX Solutions, LLC
######################################################################## Sections: 1) Introduction
2) Bug
3) Proof of concept code.
4) Fix
5) Philosophy
6) Closing comments..
7) Contact ______________________________________________________________________ 1) Introduction According to the Jupiter report, 31 percent of online households intend to file their taxes over the Web this year, up from the 30 percent reported by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last year. The IRS plans to receive 80 percent of all returns electronically by 2007. Complaints about identity theft have risen 73 percent from
a year ago, according to a new report from the Federal Trade Commission. With the influx of e-tax filers and the rise in identity
theft PivX believes this vulnerability should be taken
quite seriously. Someone with a minimal set of computer skills could locally or remotely obtain confidential information on multitude of users. TurboTax (Advisory #MK002A) and TaxCut (#MK002B) both
save their contents to the hard drive. These files are unencrypted, and even with a simple text editor, you can see all the information you would in the tax return. These files can be accessed in any number of ways, but the
most likely way would be through unprotected windows shares. The bottom line is:
- Be aware of what you are sharing to the public - There are other ways files could be collected, such as
through a worm, an exploit, or a trojan horse. H&R Block Tax Cut files are named with this extension: ".sbr" .. Decently small files < 8k usually. and are usually located in a directory off the root of
the drive, such as "TaxCut02", under the subdirectory "Program\TaxData" A "hacked" H&R block computer could give an identity theft hundreds of plaintext files full of information. ______________________________________________________________________ 2) Bug Just a small insecurity can lead to a lot of information. Tax Cut is pretty simple to view. Just load the file into
a text editor and you've got it all. Social Security #, dependants SS#s, address, wages,etc. ______________________________________________________________________ 3) Proof-of-concept code No proof of concept needed, just use a hex editor or text editor as files are associated: (.sbr) Text Editor ______________________________________________________________________ 4) Fix * No response has yet been recieved from H&R Block. (1/10/2003)
* Second contact email sent on 1/29/2003.
* No response as of 3/04/2003. The best solution is to move saved tax files to a more private place, such as a CD-R. Even if a drive is not shared to the public, you may still be at risk through other exploits or trojan horses. As mentioned by Becky Worley in a TechTV article tuesday,
Easy Crypto Deluxe is recommended to password protect your sensitive data. Hopefully the company will create a fix for this problem. ______________________________________________________________________ 5) Philosophy Full disclosure can lead to a quick fix, and prevent a problem before it gets into the wrong hands. ______________________________________________________________________ 6) Closing comments.. In the electronic world, consider nothing secure. You should never store this type of information on a live computer. Be careful. ______________________________________________________________________ 7) Contact ... ______________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Rating:
Summary: Pain!
Review: Why should it be such a pain in the neck to use tax program!? I paid money for TaxCut, so i can file easily and save my time and energy. It messed up and i either have to start over (grrr...) or file paper forms. I miss old good TurboTax when it didn't have spyware yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Works GREAT (glad I left TurboTax!!!)
Review: I used TurboTax the previous year, but when I learned about their product activation (=customer-hassles) "scheme" I decided to try TaxCut, and found out that it is as good IF NOT BETTER than TurboTax. I see no reason to go back to old TurboTax after trying TaxCut. The navigation is EXCELLENT - much improved. Thank you TaxCut!
Rating:
Summary: Buggy TaxCut
Review: I get the TaxCut because I bought a laptop from Dell and Dell give it free. I decide to use it after I read so many compaints about TurboTax. After using TaxCut, I feel that maybe I should consider filing my tax return manually. The program has several problems. The step-by-step guide provides little help. When you hit "Help" button, it always bring you to the help home page and you have to dig out the information yourself. Sometimes I think I might as well just read the IRS booklet myself. The program has many bugs, to name a few, 1. I import my last year TurboTax tax return. After that, the program somehow links the zip codes of my home address and company address together. If I manually change any one of the zip code, the other one will change together. I can only have one correct address no matter what I do. I end up just start all over without importing at all. 2. Do not use the "Review your entries" feature under the "Report" menu. I try to use it to correct an error. TaxCut crashes on me when I click the "Interview" button in order to get back to interview steps 3. TaxCut State for California keeps blocking my e-filing. It keeps saying that I have illegal hyphen or punctuation in either the tax payer or the spouse's name. I checked over and over again and there are neither hyphen nor punctuation in any of the names. I decides to start all over the third time and carefully re-type everything. I still can not e-file. This is the worse year for e-filing a tax return I ever has. I am wondering why these company can not do a good QA on their product. This is just so frustrating and unbelievable.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Product
Review: I was a happy TurboTax since the days of 3.5" disk install. I moved to TaxCut because of the hype about spyware in TurboTax Anyway, big mistake. Here were the problems. 1) The product did not transfer over data related to Alternative Minimum Tax from TurboTax - meaning that Alternative Minimum Tax Credit was not calculated. Tech Support response - start over and don't use TurboTax import. 2) I finally got TaxCut to recognize my AMT credit. But it kept "forgetting" it. If I touched a field, the 1040 would include the credit. But next time I loaded TaxCut it was gone. 3) I tried to e-file and the program crashed. Tech support says to start over. A real hassle given the amount of data I had entered. Now I will have to paper file. 4) In general - does not feel as solid and reliable as TurboTax. Back to TurboTax next year.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs More Work
Review: Because of Windows XP-related problems with this year's TurboTax, I tried TaxCut for the first time. It was a bit buggy: It didn't like your current address being different from your W2 addresses, especially if the state was different (this issue caused problems throughout, and foiled my attempts to e-file my state return), display problems at screen resolution greater than 1024x768, context-sensative help didn't always work (online help in general was clunky - I often went to IRS.GOV instead), some forms (all support forms) didn't print properly. TurboTax also has better historical and comparison features. All in all, TaxCut is OK, but I'll go back to TurboTax when they fix their Windows XP problems.
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