Review by Michael

Well, Turbo Tax and Intuit have been in the news quite a bit of late. And now they are giving people money back.

Well, I used the Deluxe version last year and had to pay to upgrade along the way because of some features it did not have. Now they have cut even more from the Deluxe so I bought the Premier. Amazon has great prices on this (though I got a free copy to review).

The Premier edition works well for my particular needs and as usual walks you through the process. It can get a bit confusing and difficult to go back to a particular spot, but that would be true with any software tax program. The ability to e-file is nice for Federal and state and this version includes one state download. But you have to pay to file your state electronically.

One issue that I have encountered over the years is that when you file a second state return, which I need to do for income in a different state, I needed to include a copy of my other state tax return. That did not get included in my e-file. If I am paying extra (a lot extra) to e-file another state, why would they not include ALL the forms that are required? I have pointed that out to Intuit. I don’t plan to do that again.

The program imports a lot of info which saves time.

All in all I am pleased. I haven’t finalized things yet, just did what I could, but so far it is pretty typical. I knocked off stars because of the up-selling. I was all set to buy the Deluxe and discovered that it no longer did what it did last year. And then I recalled how I had during the course of using it last year had to upgrade anyway for some financial importing features that actually saved me time to do and ended up being worth the extra money.

Don’t expect a lot of customer support from them and don’t pay attention to their guarantees. Had an issue one year when they miscalculated and I had to pay interest. To get the guarantee refund, etc., they wanted me to go through so many hoops that would have taken so much time it wasn’t worth it. I essentially had to recreate the file. They would not accept their own electronic file I had on my computer. Go figure. Made no sense.

But, overall I have been pleased with them. Like I said, I knocked off stars for their come from behind change in product and up-selling.