Earlier this week we looked at TurboTax, which is the top selling tax software in Canada. But there is another well known program that has been gaining momentum. UFile is a serious contender in the Canadian tax preparation market.
The interview process in UFile works well, though not quite as comfortable to use as the TurboTax interviewer. UFile also includes their MaxBack Refund Analyzer, which looks at the whole family to best suggest deductions, credits, and pension splitting.
UFile’s biggest strength is in their pricing. While there are free tax programs for Canadians, you may be willing to pay for a more polished and user friendly product. Ufile is only $19.99, half the price of TurboTax Standard. Ufile’s cost effectiveness becomes even more apparent when compared to higher version’s of TurboTax, many of which add features that are in the one version of UFile. There is a Plus version of UFile that is recommended for those that are self employed.
UFile also has online versions, which are free for some if you’re either a student or have an income of less than $20,000. This Friday, February 26th, is Free File Friday for Canadians age 60 or over. You’ll only need to accept the free offer on Friday to qualify. You can then enter your taxes at a later date once you round up all your documents.
Check back next week for reviews of StudioTax and Udotaxes. Both are completely free, though they do accept donations.
Tax Software Review – UFile,Related Posts:
Tom Drake is the owner and head writer of Canadian Finance Blog.
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I’ve been trying to decide between UFile and QuickTax. It sounds like I’m going to go with UFile based on the information here. Thanks for the review!
.-= 2 Cents @ Balance Junkie´s last blog ..Task Force on Financial Literacy: Gold Medal =-.
I’ve used QuickTax and UFile online and I acutally find UFile easier. Tax time is fairly easy for my wife and I (one job each, RRSPs, Charity Stuff and thats it) and it was easy. Also for this year even the Home Improvement Credit had its own page and that was it.
I am a non-resident and I I have been using a tax refund provider to file my tax returns as it seemed a bit complicated and I didn’t really have the time to deal with those things. Is it possible for non -residents who have no idea about Canadian tax laws use these softwares?
Be warned: You will still have to figure out whether or not various Lines apply to your situation and for that you will need to call Revenue Canada. Then there is the problem that for a lot of the questions UFile doesn’t tell you which Revenue Canada Line it relates to, so it becomes very difficult to figure out which questions apply to you.
That is not the biggest problem. Their customer service is terrible! So far, after two days trying to resolve one problem, there is no customer service by phone, despite them advertising that this can be used when there are problems resolving things by email. And their instructions in their emails are not specific/detailed enough to be useful, do not show that they have bothered to listen to your description of the problem and they take HOURS to reply, if they reply at all.
As the emailing isn’t working, I have been asking them again and again to phone me to walk me through a solution, and they just ignore my requests.
At least Turbo Tax has a phone line for customers!
i have used ufile with netfile for several years and found it a good program. for the first time i have problems – with the 2009 program – and find their support stinks. i cannot hyperlink to the cra for netfiling. all communication is by e-mail and all they do is repeat the netfiling procedure.
Francis,
UFile’s support system sends an intuitive, immediate, automated response. Usually that response provides the answer you need. As apparently this one does not, please reply to that email and a human response will be gladly provided.
UFile’s support has been given a bad rap in the past. It is now functioning extremely well. Also, there must be some misunderstanding, as our link to the CRA site works perfectly if you are eligible for NETFILE.
How can you say the customer service is good now? I have just wasted over a DAY trying to resolve a problem and I just get emails with irrelevant and unhelpful information, and instructions which lack enough detail and specifics to be useful. Despite all the time I have invested in this I am considering starting all over again with Turbo Tax, who have a phone line for customer service. So far, it appears to be a lie that UFile customer support will phone you when emailing isn’t resolving a problem.
After 5-6 years using UFile I think it is time to abandon the product. Why? Because CRA officer found a bug in the software and no one from UFile bothered to answer several of my emails (no phone numbers). I only wanted explanation why software acted the way it did. It took me and CRA guy 1/2 hour to figure it out. But still I don’t know why. Also, still waiting for any feedback from UFile. Poor, very poor customer service!
Thanks for the review of Ufile
I have lost faith in Quick tax after discovering the 2008 version did not aggregate all of the entries with regard to T3 slips. As a result I had an unwanted follow up call from CRA. Quick tax can’t explain why amounts entered on the one window where not included in the rollup transfered to the T1.
Can Ufile split income from joint accounts and attribute to each spouse when filing jointly?
I have found several years of using TurboTax that data has gone missing. I lost all my entries for min and wife’s taxes this year fter clicking the save menu option. I am starting all ever and wondering about changing products and egtting my oney back. After all the errors other years I swear I will not buy TurboTax again but here I am sgain! Paper and calculator is faster than trying to figure if all the hidden stuff was dne right again.
After purchasing your program on-line my husband found out that this tax program is not compatable with the one he used last year. Lots of information will have to be re-entered etc. and some info might even be missing. What can we do? If it really doesn’t work can we get a refund?
Thanks for this nice review of Tax Software. Tax software enables you to calculate and estimate your taxes for evaluating your liability areas. Completing tax return is much easier, faster and convenience than ever.
Ufile 2009 tax year. There seems to be a problem with Scedule 12 Home Improvement page. Their Help page? It is Use-less; confusing!
Can anyone say where their HELP (less) centre is located?
I received several respose-emails asking for ME to clarify the problem. What do they NOT understand about: YOUR SCHEDULE 12 PAGE DOES NOT WORK!! FIX IT!!
Hi, Is there a place we can download ufile, I broke the cd by accident, don’t need the key, please email me. Thanks
John, you can contact the people at Ufile here. They may be able to help you out.
I’ve used UFile for many years. Until this year, I’d only ever had one problem (a minor miscalc which was later resolved). My experiences this year however have been absolutely horrible. I took up an early payment discount offer in Feb but when I went to file online during tax time, there was no credit on my account and I was asked to pay again. I sent multiple emails (the only way you can contact UFile) over a week’s time to request some assistance, but I never heard back (aside from a useless auto reply). My only option now is to pay again or redo my taxes and file elsewhere. Will have to try QuickTax … looks like you get what you pay for. UFile has a good program but really poor customer service if there are any issues — not a good mix for something as time-sensitive and important as filing your taxes.
I do tax returns for self and several family members each year. Purchased UFile for first time this year. Input return but software did not perform calculation or save data. Problem repeated, a frustrating waste of time. Email to Ufile got back an autoreply with 10-15 suggested solutions, none of which was relevant. No helpline. Purchased Quicktax, worked like a charm in comparison. Purchase of UFile was a waste of time and cost that in the end was worthless to me – as far as I know I can’t return it. Received email survey today from Ufile. Went to complete and was told survey was full. I will stick with Quicktax which works for me and would recommend that program over Ufile, notwithstanding Quicktax costs $20 more.
Just a quick update to my May 7 2010 10:52 pm rant. I eventually did hear back from UFile. It took some time and a number of emails, but they did apologize and ultimately provided a more than fair resolution.
Cheers,
Nick
I don’t think you wanna trust UFile. I used UFile this year. My return was re-assessed and CRA said my return was wrong and I have to pay a fine. I’ll definitely stay away from it next year.
Same happened to me for 2010 tax year. Unbelievable!
My 2010 was also reassessed by the CRA, as UFILE incorrectly calculated my refund… I did not have anything complex – standard T4 and RRSPs.
They don’t fine you for a mistake. Your post is exagerated.
I have always used Quicktax for more than 10 years. This year, I decided to try UFILE as it was cheaper. I completed my husband’s tax return for 2010 and was disappointed when a message said he is not qualified to NETFILE. I have always netfile my family’s tax returns. I’m going back to using Quicktax, not Turbo. UFILE was a waste of money.
I found my Ufile experience totally unacceptable. I’m a software engineer and understand computers.
The form filling works but NETFiling does not. It does not save the return in TAX format, so I can not get past that point and NETFile it.
The customer service is abominable – send emails with irrelevant links.This the first and last time I bought this garbage
same thing for us Sam,was your problem ever solved? was it for 2011 tax year, (filed in 2012)
This year, Feb. 28/2012 sucked for Ufile, my hubby and I both file separately, so we each paid full price to file, but when it came to download and save our file to netfile, it wouldn’t save, Ufile has no phone help line, and we had to beg to get our proper files emailed to us. I did, hubby is still waiting… asked for a refund, no response. We wished we never used it !!!!!!
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UFile HELP is unacceptable. Here is my problem:
UFile will not calculate when RESULTS is clicked on. Sent request on a Tuesday, finally got a reply on Saturday which was useless, and still program is not working. Extremely frustrating when problem cannot be resolved. Here is answer I got.
“We’ve increased the calc timer to 120/140 seconds.
This is likely good for all cases but the following until we see otherwise:
Pension income splitting + Foreign income which will currently exceed the threshold.
I would ask you to try again and let me know the results.
Regards,
Gaetan on behalf of the UFile Team
UFile.ca
File Online On Time. ”
What does one do to make these people accountable?
I have used both ufile and turbo tax to file my tax return. I found both are equally good. However, utile is much cheaper than turbo tax. I do not see any reason why using turbo tax over ufile. From now on, ufile will be my tax return software.