Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Taxcut Deluxe works just fine
OK I'm another long-time (6 years) TurboTax user that switched to Taxcut. I finished filing my returns yesterday. After reading the reviews for both TurboTax and Taxcut, I almost did my taxes by hand. As it turns out, for me at least, some of the more the ominous Taxcut feedback (the ones with single stars) was mostly hype. My return is moderately complex, with regular and passive income, capital gains, itemized deductions, carryover losses etc. At the end of the day, Taxcut handled it all fine. Here are some positives that address some of the negative feedback:
1. Imported last year's TurboTax data perfectly. There was one minor glitch in interpreting it, which I'll explain below.
2. Performed two online updates via dialup, one via LAN, they all worked fine
3. Properly handled the carryover loss, which had to be treated differently for Fed and State
4. Interview worked fine - never ran into a question like "please fill in form X"
5. Navigation through fields worked fine with the Tab key and arrows
6. E-filing worked great. Yeah the return got rejected a couple of times because Taxcut didn't ask me to fill in fields that the IRS and FTB wanted, but the error status pointed me right to the problems and I fixed them easily, and re-filed. Never crashed, no "socket warnings", etc. I e-filed via dialup. The only thing I can think of that might make a difference is alot of people seem to be using the XP OS. I'm using Win 98, and Win 2000. Maybe Taxcut has issues with XP.
Taxcut did what TurboTax made harder this year - I completed the return on my home PC and loaded Taxcut on my work PC only to print it out. Here are a couple of negatives:
1. The program crashed about 5 or 6 times while completing my return, mostly when I was bouncing around between different sections. While annoying, I never lost data, in fact Taxcut seems to retain data even if you don't save the file manually.
2. When you e-file, you use your last year's AGI as an electronic signature. Taxcut pulled the wrong figure (gross income vs. AGI) from my TurboTax data. I was able to override the field and it worked fine. My return was still rejected because my spouse's AGI didn't match, even though I filed MFJ last year! Taxcut doesn't allow you to specify spouse's AGI in that case, so I had to fake it out and go through as though it was filed separately, override the spouse AGI, and then go back and change the filing status. For some reason, even though the status is MFJ, Taxcut provides a spouse AGI and the IRS checks it. Minor annoyance. Overall I like Taxcut and would use it again. I also liked TurboTax alot. Not sure what I'm going to do next year. Either program beats doing taxes by hand by a mile.
Rating:  - Avoid at all costs
For the prior four years I used TurboTax. This year, heeding warnings of TurboTax's adware and spyware, I tried TaxCut. I found many differences between the two, with TaxCut being worse by far. For example, where TurboTax asks simple questions in ordinary language, TaxCut's questions are often phrased in technical IRS jargon. Where TurboTax makes complex calculations "behind the scenes" using IRS rules, TaxCut in many cases requires YOU to make those calculations. In some cases the program required me to download an IRS publication and use a worksheet to figure out what TurboTax does automatically. My taxes are not especially complicated. Part of my income comes from employment with taxes withheld, and part from self-employment, for which I pay quarterly estimated taxes. TurboTax handled both very easily, even figuring my estimated tax for the coming year (based on the prior year's income). TaxCut required me do make the estimates. When I entered the dates I had made quarterly payments during 2002, the program flagged them as errors ("dates are prior to beginning of year"). What year? 2003? They were estimated payments made DURING 2002. Because of such catch-22s as this, I finally just closed the program and uninstalled it. In a nutshell, TaxCut requires you to interpret IRS tax rules and use them to make complex calculations that TurboTax does automatically. And TaxCut's "error" check put me in a trap I couldn't get out of. I will definitely not use TaxCut again.
Rating: - Will not import TurboTax file
I thought I'd try TaxCut since TurboTax decided to cripple their software this year. I can't say they compare well so far. First off TaxCut claims you can import TurboTax files from the prior year. I have tried every possible combination and filed a report to TaxCut support and have been unable to resolve the problem. To TaxCuts credit I submitted the problem on their web page and was called at my home the very next day by support. I doubt TurboTax would do the same. The program looks for old *.t01 files regardless of whether or not you select to import TaxCut or TurboTax files. So I thought maybe I'd do it manually. If you quit the program and save, it starts back up at the section of questions you left at, not at exactly where you left off like TurboTax. So you need to scroll forward to get to where you left off.
It seems like a competent tax program but after being used to TurboTax I may take advantage of TaxCut's 100% money-back guarantee and get TurboTax again.
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