TaxACT Online Ultimate Bundle (2011)

Back in the 1990s, there was a small software company in Iowa that produced a tax preparation program called Personal TaxEdge. It was an also-ran, competing with the big financial companies that created the Big Two: Intuit (TurboTax) and Kiplinger (originally TaxCut, now H&R Block At Home). The company was eventually sold and the product discontinued, but a small group of employees took it on and turned it into what is today TaxACT.

In several ways, 2nd Story Software has built TaxACT up to the point where it's a strong competitor for TurboTax's Editor's Choice award. The product accommodates complex tax returns, though it lacks some of TurboTax's investment chops. Its help is easily accessible and nearly as plentiful and understandable. And it's fast.?

Maybe most important to some, it's significantly less expensive. You'd pay $17.95 to prepare and e-file your federal and state returns, plus $7.95 for unlimited phone support with a tax expert, for a total of $25.90. Intuit would charge you $86.90 for the same combination of services. I reviewed the $17.95 Ultimate Bundle, which offers preparation and filing for both federal and state using the Deluxe product.

TaxACT has also gone mobile this year, like its competitors, with an iPad version and a smartphone app.

When Free Really Means Free
Like it competitors, 2nd Story doesn't charge you until you're ready to file, which means you can do some comparison among the sites on your own.

You aren't charged at all if you opt for the Free Federal Edition (optional state is $14.95). Competitors offer free versions, but these do not contain the prep tools offered by their paid editions. TaxACT's gratis offering lacks a few of the extras found in the paid Deluxe Edition, like J.K. Lasser's Tax Tutor Guidance and import of W-2 and investment data.

But the free version gives you access to the same forms and schedules, and you could prepare the same return, no matter how complex, on either Free or Deluxe. This is not the case with the other sites reviewed here: Their free versions do not offer the preparation prowess of their paid editions.

A Standard Navigational System
All of these sites use a similar navigational scheme?pioneered back in the early 1990s by Intuit?to get at all relevant 1040 data. TaxACT greets you by asking for your name, address, Social Security number, etc. and asks for information about dependents and your filing status. As you begin the Federal Q&A, you're asked whether you want Step-by-Step Guidance (expanded, more comprehensive exploration of topics) or would rather just choose topics to visit on your own. Which you use depends on your confidence level and the complexity of your return. ?

Starting here and continuing throughout, the site displays questions and asks you to either fill in blank fields or make selections from lists. TaxACT takes your entries and deposits them?in the background?on the correct lines of the 1040 and related forms and schedules (if you've paid for your product, you can view the actual IRS documents as you go along). You just continue to click on the Continue and Back buttons to advance to the next screen.

Unlike H&R Block At Home, TaxACT lets you view screens and enter data out of sequence. Though it's recommended that you follow the site's linear path, you can click on Jump to Forms & Topics to get an interactive list of the forms and schedules included. Select one to either add a new copy of that page or edit/delete an existing one. Got a document in the mail (like the 1099-SA) but you don't know where it goes? There's another list containing such paperwork that links to the appropriate screens.

You can also navigate to other topics by clicking on tabs and sub-tabs at the top of the working area; these divide the 1040 into related content, like Life Events (changes that will affect the path that TaxACT establishes for you, with extra tips), Federal Q&A (Income, Deductions, etc.) and Review (final pre-filing stages that help ensure that you haven't made any errors or omissions). Click the Forms tab in the vertical pane on the right to see graphical representations of forms and schedules in progress as well as documents you've received. Links here take you to instructions, display the number of copies entered, and let you create new ones.

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