TurboTax is out for the tax season and I’ve had a chance to try it out over the past week and put together a TurboTax review and giveaway. Intuit has rebranded their Canadian tax software from the previous QuickTax name. This was done to align all their global tax programs under the TurboTax name.
So other than just the name, what else is new? While only so much can change with tax software from year to year, TurboTax does have some improvements to it’s step-by-step guidance, including better tracking of where you’re at while filling out your return.
Another simple feature I found useful was the ability to flag pages to easily come back to them later. This helped me a couple times as I often find myself missing some number or piece of paper, but I would just flag it and move on to the next step.
While TurboTax Standard will cover the needs of most Canadians, there is also the Premier version that includes help with investments and rental properties and the Home & Business version that includes everything from Premier and also helps you maximize your business deductions and expenses. Keep in mind that the Standard version can handle investments and business income and expenses, but just as straight tax forms, not with any wizards or optimizers. You can compare TurboTax versions on Intuit’s site.
There’s also a TurboTax Basic. I’ve never tried it but it appears to be stripped down to a walk through for just T4s and donations. But considering it does have all the tax forms included, this could be an option for those looking for a step up from doing taxes manually on paper.
I recommend TurboTax and have used it to prepare my family’s taxes for the past two years now. It’s a great program and worth the money if you want the smoothest experience while doing your taxes. If you have a simple enough return, you might also consider the lower cost UFile or even the free StudioTax.
TurboTax Premier 2010 Giveaway
TurboTax Premier includes everything in Standard, plus powerful tools to help you easily claim investments & rental property income.
How To Enter:
To enter to win a copy of TurboTax Premier 2010, fill out the entry form below before the end of day on March 6th.
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This contest is open to anyone in Canada. The deadline for entries is Sunday, March 6th at 11:59PM MST and the winners will be contacted by email on Monday. There will be one winner, chosen with a random number generator from Random.org. If the winner does not reply within one week, a new name will be drawn. Good luck!
TurboTax Review,Related Posts:
Tom Drake is the owner and head writer of Canadian Finance Blog.
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I’m probably gonna go with that package when I do my taxes. I haven’t really decided yet but I better decide soon.
I have used the Intuit program since I started on line filing about 10 years ago. Old name Quick TAx.
I have nothing but praise for the product and for years now it connects seamlessly with Ottawa and the refund is in the bank in days.
Earlier problems were likely at K1A. :>)
For the past two tax years, I have come across a problem with QuickTax/TurboTax that could penalize large charitable donors. If you make charitable donations that create a non-refundable tax credit that exceeds your tax payable, there is no warning from TurboTax. Unless you go in and manually carry over a portion of the charitable donations to a later year such that you use only the non-refundable tax credits you need in the current tax year, you will lose the excess non-refundable tax credits forever. I found this out last year when I added in one final charitable receipt and the refund did not increase. In determining why that happened, I discovered that I was about to lose non-refundable tax credits that I could save by deferring charitable donations to a later year. I have no problem with the tax rule – the point is that TURBOTAX GAVE NO WARNING that this was happening. I would think it would be easy to incorporate this into the program.
Here in the USA we have efile not Ufile but it might be
similar. The program allows people to file taxes electronically and TurboTax is one of the options to use. Unfortunately, it is only free for Federal taxes so people have to pay for the state return or file that with pen and paper. I recommend to my friends to just upgrade to the home and business deluxe version because it is much more comprehensive.
I have used QuickTax for as long as I can remember – likely 1996 – and have used Turbotax for the last year (or two?) . Anyway, I cant imagine a worse product. It honestly sucks. QuickTax used to let you go the line numbers and see forms.. I cant find out where to put my T1204 (box 84) if my life depended on it. No, I am looking for something else this year. I have a PhD in maths and have loved doing my own taxes.. but this software is possibly the worst I have ever come across.
I got tired of the spam and will probably be attempting to get a refund.
Every year this software gets worse. From text on a 24″ monitor that is so small you can barely see it to a more ridiculously confused interface each year for the last twelve years I swear I will do my taxes on the paper forms. It would be much easier. I have never beenone to like fully automatic software when problems arise but…
This year I got roped into spending almost $40 to use the auto-calc pension splitting version. Last year it was included in the cheap package but an incorrect slip from my previous employer had already been put through, on it. Well TurboTax can’t do correction submissions and after using it to calc the best pension split I submitted the result by hand. Next thing I get back bills from the governement to pay more taxes! Turns out that TurboTax forgot some of my slips on the new calculation and calculated using old totals before some of the slips were entered. I reviewed this for days trying to figure out what happenned only to find some slips that I verified, as entered were forgotten in the latest save.
This year (2011) I have entered all my slips into their fancy, easy entry, method and finally gave up with the confusion, and self promotion spam included, having to guess what deduction slip entries I would make. I saved the files and exited out of TurboTax, then reopened to see if I would get a fresh choice of the entering slips method, instead. Eventually I found the menu to switch and now all my entries are gone. Two complete tax returns filled with zeros! Again TurboTax didn’t save the latest information to the file I had designated.
This thing has no recollection of carry forward or carry backward investment losses from other years and each year it has to be re-entered, after you find your income tax forms from 2003 to 2010. I hope you have them all in printed form, ’cause not likely you can ever open your old files…assuming you have never had a computer crash in the last seven or eight years. Old versions are nt assessible from the latest version and the old versions don’t install in Win 7 due to poor code writing habits from these guys.
Assming you get past all these hurdles you will have to put up with Intuit’s spamware on every third page asking you to buy one of their products. After the experiences I have had with this “junk” I wouldn’t touch another Intuit product if it was free. I have been looking for other Tax prep software companies, for the last few years, but Intuit owns them all. All other have been purchased and shut down. hmmmmm… H&R just got involved. Next year I will be looking or just do it by hand with a calculator! I was always good with math anyway.