Review by Carlos Santiago

I’ve been using Turbo Tax for the last 5 years for my federal and state filings. I have always used the web version except for this year that I decided to purchase the downloadable desktop version. The reason for the switch was simply because I wanted to take advantage of a discount offer that was not available for the web or any other version.

Transferring last years’ return should have been more straightforward. I was expecting a transparent transfer of last’s years data, since it comes from the same company (intuit), regardless of where the data was stored, but it required me to start filing the 2013 form on the web, then loading 2012’s data into the 2013 form, exporting the 2013 data into a file and finally importing this file manually into the desktop application version. I was able to figure this out, but only after searching through the intuit web site, and following a user-posted workaround procedure, not intuit’s. I probably understand the security and technical reasons behind this, but I can also see the headache’s for less technically-inclined users going through the same situation. I took one star out for the reasons mentioned above.

In the end, the actual filing process was smoother than with the web version. The software responded more quickly to my inputs and clicks, and I didn’t hesitate going back to make adjustments or corrections to the different forms. With the web version you can get confused when navigating the application; sometimes the browser’s back button is not the correct option to go back to a previous section and it gets a little stressful.

I had an overall positive experience with this product and recommend it for new users. Just make sure that this is the correct version for you.