I got the TaxCut software free this year. Yup, it came in the mail. Thanks for the free software, H&R Block.
But why did they send it free? That frightened just a little bit. The package says "Guaranteed Accurate Calculations or we pay penalties plus interest." So I was worried that this was a peace offering to make up for some glitch in last year's software.
Well, apparently they were just trying to gin up their usage numbers for their lawsuit. They sued Intuit, maker of the competing TurboTax, for misleading advertising claims, to wit: "More returns were prepared with TurboTax last year than at all the H&R Block stores combined."
According to news reports Intuit settled by agreeing to pull the ads. "H&R Block ... said in its court filing that its stores prepared more than 26 million returns last year while taxpayers used TurboTax to prepare 21 million returns."
So in the year 2005 there were 47 million taxpayers who had to resort to either computer software or a paid preparer. And those are just the taxpayers who used those two companies' products. The people who actually do their taxes themselves without help from tax software is probably less than 1%.
Steve Forbes was onto something. The flat tax looks more enticing every year.
[For a comparison of TaxCut and TurboTax see PC World.]
So does that mean Turbo Tax sucks?!
Posted by: msfanni AKA aunticraker | January 30, 2006 at 11:50 AM
Taxcut is sucky this year. I made the mistake of buying the premium edition, and it wouldn't let me file until an update "sometime in mid-February". That day is today, and now it tells me I can't file until "sometime in mid-March"
Posted by: Nchantim | February 16, 2006 at 04:24 PM
Nchantim,
That's too bad. I've got the Standard edition, and I downloaded the "A" update when I got it. After reading your comment I checked again and there was a "C" update available for downloading. So I guess it pays to keep checking.
Posted by: Geo | February 20, 2006 at 03:06 PM