Tax prep software

While both TurboTax or HR Block (was Taxcut) have worked fine for me in the past, I find the automated transfer of data from Quicken to Turbotax to be highly overrated.

With a few exceptions (like charitable donations, medical expenses, etc.), the authoritative source for most of the numbers that go into my returns are things like W-2s and 1099s - not numbers from Quicken reports.

Use whatever tax software you prefer.

Yes, I've found TurboTax import to be problematic, and manually checking every detail is more onerous than simply running Quicken reports and manually entering data. I switched away from TurboTax and now use TaxAct, which is a great, inexpensive tax package for Windows. (There's also an online version if you want to go that route.) They release a "preview" version every October, so I can get a good idea of what my final tax situation is for the year. The final version comes out in early-to-mid January with minor updates throughout the season.

HTH,

Margaret

I agree that transfer of data from Quicken to the tax program is over rated. I have had errors introduced during the transfer, so I spent as much time verifying the data as it would have taken to manually transfer it. TurboTax is better than TaxCut in transferring Quicken data, but neither seems very good.

TurboTax does download 1099 data from my banks and brokerage firms. That is a huge time savings for me. Having all of my stock sales downloaded with accurate dates and cost basis data, along with dividends, foreign tax withholding, and interest for bank accounts makes TurboTax the only choice for me.

I don't believe (but I may be wrong) that any other tax program does this.

-- Jim

Thanks to all who responded. I bought a box copy of TurboTax Premier this morning and will install it later today. It will probably take a while for me to get it all figured out. I'll keep you posited as things develop.

Gordon