TurboTax Deluxe Federal + efile 2009
If you own a home, made donations or have medical expenses, TurboTax Deluxe will easily get you every tax deduction you deserve. Get Your Refund Fast: Efile Your 2009 Taxes with TurboTaxHere’s how efile works: Start your return and efile with TurboTax today. The moment the IRS starts accepting returns, scheduled for January 15, 2010, TurboTax will submit your efiled return. The IRS will confirm receipt by e-mail within 48 hours. Here’s how it works: Asks easy questions We cu [Read More...]
Buy TurboTax Deluxe Federal + efile 2009 at Amazon
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I’ve been using Turbotax Deluxe for over 10 years now. I love this product. Usually I buy it from a box store here in Kansas. But this year I ordered it from Amazon as a download. In the product description, there is a chart that shows which versions include what features. For Deluxe, the Sate return is included as a free download. HOWEVER, this is not true if you order the version Amazon calls “TurboTax Deluxe Federal + efile 2009.” I called Amazon customer service and was very pleased with the immediate response that they had refunded me for an otherwise non-refundable return policy on downloaded products. I now understand that some people, like Texas and Florida residents, do not want the State Return in their product and that’s why Amazon sells two different products. They said they would fix the charts that indicate a free state return. The product is excellent and so is Amazon customer service.
This review is for TuboTax 2009 Deluxe for Federal Returns. Fortunately I live in Texas and there is no state income tax so I don’t have to worry about the state portion.
TurboTax has had its share of issues but I came back to it because it does seem to be the best there is, but I’m knocking off a star because of the history of issues I’ve had with the program in previous years (like it not calculating tax correctly until I deleted some assets and then re-entered them). However, I was a little shocked to read that it requires 500MB of HD space PLUS up to 620MB more if Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 is not installed (Mac is only 255MB). Wow! That could be over 1GB to do taxes. How inefficient we have become!
I just installed TurboTax Fed Deluxe on a Vista x64 system (it’s Jan 7th, 2010) and didn’t have any problems. In fact, it installed very quickly considering that it claims it needs 500MB (but I do have an SSD drive that greatly speeds things up). TurboTax immediately found 4 updates and asked me if I wanted to update. The updates seemed to have installed just fine. “Uninstall or change a programs” says TurboTax 2009 is using 343MB. It says TurboTax 2008 (from last year and still on my computer) is “only” 162MB, so a BIG increase (but I wonder how accurate are these figures?). In any case, even 1GB of space is not a big requirement nowadays.
I will be working with this to help estimate my 2009 taxes before I pay may Jan 15th estimated tax payment.
NOTE: Deluxe will do a Schedule C just fine, but it may not provide as much help as the Home & Business version. If you have been doing taxes yourself for awhile then you might not need to pay the extra money for the additional help.
I will update this review as I continue to use the product.
Pros:
* Works on 64-bit versions of Windows XP and higher (of course that includes Vista and Windows 7)
* On Jan 8th, I used it to help compute an estimate of the tax I will owe for 2009 to help determine what to pay for my last 2009 estimated tax payment and the program did not crash.
* I had a “flawless” install and update on Vista 64-bit – didn’t ask for any serial or reg code
* Probably the best tax program there is
* Price includes federal E-File
* Deluxe version can do a Schedule C for the self-employed – but it doesn’t provide as much guidance as the Home & Business edition
Cons:
* Not perfect (but how can US taxes ever be perfect)?
* Annoying “smart” input entries that try to format things like dates while you’re still entering them
* Bad/complicated handling of SEP contributions
* Have encountered bugs in previous years that caused me to have to delete and re-enter assets
* Might take up to 1.12GB of HD space on Windows according to the system requirements