Taxk Planner

I have the same problem with Quicken 2006 Deluxe.

I was waiting if Intuit gets this right this time. But to no surprise they didn't. I've been using Quicken for 10 years now and I like the Tax planner - but with this bug it's quite useless - especially when one needs it - in January - no W2 yet but you got all the necessary data in Quicken. I would understand that they can make this mistake once but to be so consistent year after year (especially with a new release every year) - this is simply unacceptable. The developer responsible for this should be fired. Happy new year to you too Intuit!

I tried Intuit support. The online chat was a waste of time. I called the 1-800 number. The first person tried hard to understand the problem but was clueless and at the end recommended to call again and get another person. The second person was Jack and he "... uses Quicken daily and there is nothing wrong with the program ...". He said that even before I had time to explain my problem. Obviously there was no point talking to him - so after venting my anger for a while I called again. The third person - "Peter" (can they at least pick fake Indian names?) was interesting - he actually claims that this is in fact a feature of Quicken. The Intuint support definitelly provides a good entertainment value and I fully recommend it - especially after several beers and as long as you don't actually expect any help.

Now this is from Quicken web site -

The Quicken Tax Planner only supports two years of tax calculations, the year that the Quicken version is released and the year that follows, because the U.S. tax code changes constantly. For example, Quicken 2003 was released in 2002, so the Tax Planner in that version supports calculations for tax years 2003 and 2002.

They are not saying that the feature stops working in 2004. But this is exactly what seems to be happening. It seems that there are 2 things one can do -

1) Upgrade to Quicken 2006 (no I am not an Intuit employee). One would hope that Quicken 2006 can calculate 2005 taxes correctly.

2) DO THIS ON YOUR OWN RISK!!! Set the date on your computer to December 31st 2005. Restart Quicken - it seems to get fooled and calculate the taxes with 2005 values. Again - do this at your own risk

- I am not sure if this can mess things up. I wouldn't do any downloads or any transactions. Just do the Tax planner then quit, set the date back and restart again for normal use.

Just in case there is an angel in Intuit reading this - here are the steps to reproduce the problem -

Quicken Deluxe 2005 (computer date in year 2006) Create a new Quicken file (skip the guided setup) Create a new checking account (no online - just a simple empty checking account) Create 2 transactions Date/15/2005 Category=Salary DepositP0 Date
/02/2006 Category=Salary DepositP0 Open the Tax Planner The year at the top left shows 2005 Click on the Wages The wages show wrong 91,250 - based on YTD average for the year

2006 It should be 500! There is no option to choose 2005 values

--pv

What part of that explanation didn't you understand?

The issue isn't that it only supports the two tax years, it's that the planner is looking for values that fall outside of that range.

I've got Q '05 D.

If my Tax Year is set to '05, the Tax Planner ought to show me '05 x'actions, right?

It's not.

Now that Jan. 1, '03 has rolled around, it's looking for '06 x'actions, even though my Tax Year is still set to '05.

However, if I set my system clock to 12/31/05 & start Q again, bingo! the '05 info. is there.

Prior to updating, I used Q '02 D. This issue wasn't present there.

In Q '02, the planner would only support tax year '01 (the year Q '02 was released) & tax year '02.

If I had the tax year set to '02, it would show me actual x'actions from '02, even after Jan 1, '03. It wouldn't try to apply '03 x'actions to the '02 tax year, which is what appears to be happening in Q '05 D.

Whoops! should read

" It's not.

Now that Jan. 1, '06 has rolled around..."

sorry for any confusion.

Yes, I also see this bug. Interesting to note that Tax planner still works correctly when year 2004 is selected. When year 2005 is selected Quicken tries to use 2006 data. I verified that setting system clock to Dec 31, 2005 allows planner to work, but this is a rather nasty work-around. I have reported this bug to Intuit Tech Support, but they did not commit to fixing it.