Taxing Taxes

As we head into April, it's time to complete that annual, royal PITA that is better known as taxes. Of course to cut the complex task down to size, I enlist the aid of some digital help, better known as tax software. My weapon of choice is TaxCut, the perennial underdog to the better down TurboTax.

After using it, I'm starting to wonder about the wisdom of that choice. For example, the error checker was questioning values that were a resounding zero anyway so I'm not sure it's worth that much effort to fix a number that won't effect the tax anyway.

This year, there was a new feature. There is a way to be able to print directly to a PDF. This is a nice feature as I usually discover some error after the mountain of paperwork pops out of the printer. I'd like to say it worked well, but it didn't. After printing to a PDF, the TaxCut program froze. Seriously, and this error was consistently reproducible. This is rather annoying, especially given that for the number of years this has been around, I'd expect it to be more stable, especially given that I've got freeware solutions that can accomplish the same thing without crashing.

After struggling with it over the weekend, let's just say that next year I'll be taking a closer look at which tax software I'm going to be using. Taxes are difficult enough without crashing software.

Jonas

Cutting TaxCut

I've been a user of TaxCut software for the last few years. I had an accountant for many years, and the guy did an excellent job. One day he decides to sell the business to some youngster, and it was a disaster. The guy shows up with his notebook computer, then loses all the data and has to start again. His printer wouldn't print, and when it was all done, there were a dozen mistakes in the return. The one thing I learned from the experience was that he used TurboTax, and the next year I decided to just do it myself.

For the last few year, TaxCut has been the less painful alternative. Somewhere along the line, I registered the product as it does need some updates to have all the final tax codes incorporated. In previous years, they send me a reminder to pick up the software, like I could forget to pay my taxes.

About two weeks ago, the TaxCut folks send me a CD with the upcoming year's tax software on it. I hadn't requested it, but when I opened it I figured out that I needed to pay $39.95 to unlock it and use it. This got me curious, and wondering if this was a special deal for their loyal customers as I might expect. I comparison shopped for TaxCut Premium with State, which is what I had used in previous years.

I headed over to the TaxCut website. If I order the CD, it's the same $39.95 so that's the standard fee. I thought about it, and noticed that the software can be downloaded. Now with no CD and package, that should save some money, right? For whatever silly reason, it's the same price as well. Care to guess if I use the software online (which I don't recommend as it's way too much personal info to put into any website)? For this privilege, the cost is a not too saving $44.95, although it does include some useless extras, like a tax advisor session.


Now completely confused as to the pricing, I jumped over to Wal-Mart. The same TaxCut Premium & State I was sent can be purchased for $34.95! Clearly this is the best deal on this, and confirms why they are such a popular retailer. Holy falling prices Batman!

So, if they really want me to toss out the copy I was sent, and go and repurchase it to save a fiver than this is what I'll do next time I venture into Wally Mart. I just think this is another example of mismarketing, hardly builds product loyalty, and doesn't make any sense. When millions of TaxCut CD's are piled into landfills alongside the AOL CD's, there's no wonder why. Wouldn't it just have been more cost effective for the company to send out emails with the download link, and put the package costs towards a discount?

Jonas