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Do you understand how a progressive tax system really works, or are you just a fucking idiot?

By making it not taxable, they could be causing an employee to drop into a lower tax bracket overall.

"Lower tax brackets" (or rather, their effect on taxes) are a persistent myth.

There are tax brackets, but you're only taxed at the higher rate for overage from the previous tax bracket.

http://blog.taxact.com/how-tax...

You should spend your time on google: "import turbo tax data into taxact"
Numerous article come up, try:
http://www.taxact.com/tsupport...

Why in the world would I want to help them out after this, when I could just switch to Tax Act and never look back?

There is a support page for TaxAct that mentions there is no Mac version, and instructs you to try the web version instead...

But at the end it says:

"Also, please ensure you are using the latest version of Internet Explorer "

Rather hard since Microsoft discontinued that for the Mac years ago!

At least the system requirements page is accurate, mentioning the three major modern browsers on the Mac...

Link

It is much cheaper, has equivalent features, and better technical support than TurboTax. I started using this back when TurboTax added horrible DRM to their offering, and have never looked back.

Let's face it, there are a lot of people employed as accountants and I guess nowadays, a fair amount of software developers and business.

The people who this simplified "let the government figure it out and send back what they think I deserve" plan wouldn't apply to the vast majority of people who use accountants or probably even most of those who use TurboTax. They're using an accountant because they want every penny back that they deserve. Yes, I said deserve -- the legal amount.

There are already several free tax filing systems. TaxACT Online, H&R Block, The IRS, and even TurboTAX, the very company that is being slammed for allegedly standing in the way of free tax filing. If you are a die-hard, you can download the forms and send them in for the price of a stamp or two (my state forms, seven pages of paper, cost $0.70 to mail.)

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm referring to Taxact Free Edition which is free for anyone to use their website and to e-file a federal return. There are no income requirements.

https://taxact.com/ rules. $20 to do state and federal including e-file and automatic tax refund to my bank account. How could a "free" version possibly be better? Jeeze, GET OFF YOUR WALLET.

http://www.taxact.com/ is great and works in any standard web browser.

The business model is very simple: Give the product away and make it up in volume!

Joking aside, there has never been a better time for free products. As the strength of McDonalds and Walmart demonstrates, consumers are looking for the cheapest prices to help reduce their costs. Even consumers who are financially okay at the moment are reducing costs to prepare for any eventuality.

If you look at the market, you see a lot of giveaways that used to be unthinkable. McDonalds is doing "free latte mondays" to draw business away from Starbucks while Denny's is giving away a free Grand Slam breakfast to each visitor tomorrow in an attempt to push coupon books out to customers. (Thus encouraging them to think about the large and inexpensive breakfast they can get there.)

The key is that these businesses have solid revenue models that their giveaways promote. Web-based businesses are in a slightly tighter pickel. With advertising budgets getting slashed across the board, ad-supported websites are feeling the same pinch as print and broadcast media. Now is the time to find alternative revenue streams such as premium content to back their free services. Things like selling larger downloadable versions of free web games or state tax filings to go with free Federal filings.

These are potentially sustainable models in the Internet age. They preserve the free service concept and allow consumers to evaluate the product(s). Customers then have a difficult time not paying for Premium features or content with real value. The "real value" is the key, of course. Which is something the internet has been missing with its premium features. (Video Game DLC is particularly bad in this area.)

I'm using H&R Taxcut this year, probably the only software I still purchase on a regular basis.

Have you tried TaxAct.com? Their $17 "Ultimate" bundle includes both Federal and one State, plus e-filing for both is included! I got so sick of TaxCut and TurboTax becoming more and more expensive each year, and either charging me to e-file or else making me send in a rebate. I've used all three, and TaxAct is as good as the others.

Plus unlike the others they don't play the Vista game of offering multiple versions each with different features that try to get people to pay more out of fear they'll get stuck with the wrong one. It handles self-employment income, capital gains, deductions, etc. all in one package. I had my reservations at first since it costs about 1/3 of the others but I used it last year and was very pleased.

Let me introduce you to it.

As I have been saying here for years, the Internet is the Post Road of the 21st century. It is both the road to the market and a path for interstate commerce. It is too important to allow private enterprises to decide who is entitled to this road and who is not by virtue of which market can pay the most. It's essential for everybody -- more so since more and more government services are provided through it, including even paying income taxes.

It's high time the federal government told the incumbent providers that "if you won't provide broadband to everybody, we will".

I have been using TaxAct http://www.taxact.com/ online for years now and never have had a problem. It costs a fraction of the price that Intuit wants, and in my opinion is just as good. Plus the online version works with Windows, Mac and Linux.

Will the procrastinators learn their lesson and file at least a day early? Heck no. They even had two extra days this year. If paying the taxes is the issue, that's what an extension is for.

I am a horrible procrastinator myself, but I guess my greed overpowers that. My taxes were done, returned and spent in February. Woot! New PC!

I also learned a few years back that Turbo Tax is no better than most of the other products out there, free or otherwise. I've been using http://www.taxact.com/ for the past three years. I usually do the download, but I tried the web version for my mother-in-law's taxes. Very smooth, quick, painless and best of all, completely free. I did my mother-in-law's taxes Sunday, 4/15. That's the latest I've ever filed a return. Guess I'm getting sloppy like the unwashed masses.

There's one tax software company doing their programming entirely in America, TaxAct (2nd Story Software. I haven't used their Web version, but their Windows version runs nearly flawlessly under Wine on Linux (there are minor problems with checkbox and drop-down list display on screen while filling out forms, but those show up correctly in the print preview and output). I've used TaxCut and TurboTax in past years; TaxAct doesn't have silly videos included, but it's efficient and effective.

I share the caution about Indian programmers. I just dropped checking and savings accounts with Ameriprise (formerly Amex Bank), because in the several years since they shipped the programming off to India they still haven't gotten their site to work reliably in its basic operations. Even before security is considered, the incompetence is amazing. Now I'm seeing a downgrading in the usability of CitiBank's Website, where there's also been extensive recent offshoring - they can't be bothered to test for obvious JavaScript bugs that block Mozilla, for example, even though previously they'd officially and effectively supported Mozilla/Netscape for years. (Hell, I do work for financial firms in NYC that don't even allow their own people to browse with IE.)

I've had good luck with TaxACT.

If you just want free as in beer tax software TaxACT Standard is truly free for federal returns--even the e-filing is free. I've used it for the last two years and been pleased with it. It's a crippleware business model--the Standard version gives you lots of "encouragement" to pay money for the Deluxe version. However the Standard version is quite functional and worked great for me. And some limitations of the Standard version can be worked around: only the Deluxe version allows you to save your tax return as a PDF file, but just install PDFCreator and print to it from the Standard version and you get the same result.

I like the direct form entry mode of TaxACT. It does have an interview mode too, but I never cared much for tax software interviews--they ask you a bunch of weird questions in some arbitrary sequence that is not the same order I have my papers in. I start by entering all the tax forms I received (W-2, 1099) and the tax return is 90% done. Then I just go through the 1040 line by line and fill in the rest. TaxACT links to supporting worksheets as needed.

But I am glad to see that someone is now working on free as in speech tax software.

The Groovix company offers a Debian based server with 4 or so screens and keyboards attached - with full telephone support. I haven't tried it, but it sounds like a viable solution for those who aren't linux experts.

At first, the kids complained about not having Windows games. But now, they like Linux games (some of our terminals can boot off local disk and have 3D cards to play Tux Racer, etc). They can play Windows games at any of their friends houses, but their friends come over to play Linux games.

Remind me again why we need Windows at home?

Ok, PC tax software is only available for Windows. Some years I fire up an old Win 98 box to run the tax software. Other years, I just do it manually. TaxAct and others offer free online tax software - but I dislike putting all my info in some companies remotely accessible database. When I fire up Win98, I pay $20 for the deluxe version. I wish I could buy electronic tax forms annually for $20 and run them on an open source engine. I guess the companies are afraid to do that without some kind of DRM.

I've been using TaxAct for three years now after getting fed up with TaxCut and TurboTax/MacInTax. The programs works well and the price is right.

http://taxact.com/

Cheers, Igor

There are already FREE (BEER) solutions to e-filing your taxes for nearly everyone in nearly every state. No OSS person is going to take on the liability or complexity of the US tax code for "fun", especially when the FREE (BEER) solutions work so well and there are plenty of better projects to which you can devote your limited time.

The federal government has forms online and they also have a "Free File" for eligible taxpayers which is nearly everybody. Check out www.irs.gov for the site and a link to a variety of supported vendors who will e-file you for free using web-based forms.

I like www.taxact.com -- they are among the federal "Free File" vendors so you can use them for free and have the Fed gov't pay for it - just make sure you start at the www.irs.gov website or you'll have to pay for it. You can file the state with TaxAct for about $10 more but realize that MOST states (like IL where I live) have online FREE tax filing as well at their state websites.

However, if you're like me and want to do it at home instead of on the web for free, you can purchase TaxAct's fed and state for use at home for $20. Their software is very easy to use and asks you simple questionaire to make sure you get all your deductions. Additionally, TaxAct isn't as bloated and is not filled with crapware (like nasty DRM that writes to your root sector on your HD) like the other major vendors have done in the past. I don't work for or have any relation to taxact, but I do like them compared to other products and I would recommend them for people who want the actual program at home versus the FREE (BEER) solutions above.

The free online products allow you to file your taxes, guarantee accuracy of computations (not accuracy of what you enter OF COURSE!), print out your taxes for a personal copy, and verify their online filing. If you need a program, you can spend $20 for a fully guaranteed tax suite and save over the $175 or $69.99 charges mentioned in the post.

And you can always download the basic version of TaxAct for free!. Not for linux, but maybe Wine will work.

Switch to TaxAct for taxes.

I did last year after the DRM fiasco, and had no problems at all.

Advantages:

• Works on linux (I used firefox web browser)
• Cheap (as I said $17.00) - less than I have found in downloadable software or other online services.
• Fast - the website is very responsive and unlike turbo tax online, I have never been frustrated by the server speed.
• Stores last years return for you and auto fills in that data.
• Has tax advice, good instructions, a nice wizard interface, and checks on your return.
• Gives your PDFs to print and save when you are done.

• It is online - you are giving your financial data to a third party.
• The first year you must enter tax data from the previous year. There is no way to import turbo tax files or the like.
• You must manually enter all your w2 data. Unlike other software, it does not allow you to download it.

I was going to actually pay the extra money for TurboTax for Mac, figuring if that was the cost of avoiding Bill's monopoly, I better put my money where my mouth is.

Then I came across TaxAct, which is much cheaper than either TurboTax or TaxCut. I almost caved in to spend money on the Windows version, because they let you download a free version where you only pay when you file, but I couldn't get it to run under Wine or WineX.

Their online version worked great with Mozilla 1.4. My federal and state returns, both with efiling, cost me $18 total. A very good price.

I love it because the developers are accessible and willing to listen and respond to feature requests, it runs under wine, and for straightforward taxes, it imports the previous year's data, asks if you've done any of a few major things this year, takes your W2 data, and completes the current year in no time flat.

You can buy and download the thing online, and there's zero copyright protection. They even encourage you to do multiple returns with it, so you can split the cost with a few coworkers without really breaking the rules.

I've used TaxACT the past couple of years. It's web-based, and costs nothing if your taxes are (like mine) really simple (and, like me, you don't have a state income tax). I don't know of any solution that (1) runs on free software, and (2) is itself free software, so that pretty much limits me to using a web-based service.

Best part: You can file as many paper returns as you need for free. Filing online is free for the first federal+state, and I think it's $7.95 for each additional filing (max of 1 free + 4 additional).

The downloadable version is Windows only. However, they do have an online web-based edition here.

I tried TaxAct last year per the many recommendations of alternatives to TurboTax post on /. last tax season.

I tested just about everything, and even sent an email to support to see the response and it was very quick and responsive.

Won't be going back to TurboTax or Intuit for that matter, since they also crippled QuickBooks if you remember. When's their apology for that one coming?

I use TaxAct personally I don't feel the need to spend $50+ on tax software when I can get my state and federal tax software for $19.95 as a bundle without all the extra stuff that I do not need. TaxACT 2003 Ultimate Bundle from TaxAct.

I used TaxAct last year, it's free (no need for me for state edition) and only ~$10 for e-filing. Don't think I would like to trust software version 0.0.0.4 with my finances, anyway

"The customer reaction was unexpected."

They really thought that creating softwer that when installed actually wrote something on my MBR was not going to upset me?

How dumn are they?

Up till this year I used turbotax for the past several returns, but this year I use TaxAct. And although their interface was not as nice as turbotax, it saved me money and didn't tamper with my machine!

I used their web interface the first year, but then switched to their installed version in later years.

...TaxACT. It is available in a number of different versions, and carries a guarantee that if you are charged penalties or too much tax as a result of a TaACT error, the company will refund everything. They claim that it is the only software with this guarantee.

Yes, There are several. I use a product called TaxAct. They are located Here

TaxAct is accurate and full of features. I've been using it for years (the paid version, which is still cheap). The UI is super slick and anybody's grandma could figure it out. Vote against DRM bullsiht like this with your wallet.

I came *this* close to installing TurboTax on my Mac via VirtualPC or Bochs (cheaper) and then I read the box closely.

"Will not work on the Macintosh Platform using Windows emulation software."

I took it back and used TaxAct instead. I nearly installed it on my fiancee's PC instead. Ick.

You have to be on some sort of crack to write to a person's boot sector. Period. That's just off limits.

1. You'd think that e-file would save the IRS money.

2. IRS provides the alternative, i.e. paper, for free.

3. Hell, nevermind the savings in filing costs...imagine how much the IRS would save in PRINTING costs if everyone (or a big portion) e-filed.

Why the fsck is a cottage industry built around something we should be getting for free even allowed to exist!!!

I saw http://www.taxact.com/ in another post. I'll pay the $8. It sucks, because it should be free, but it's prolly just about the best bet out there.

The simple solution is to not use TurboTax. TaxAct.com has always worked for me. And it's free.

Or, pay an actual human being to do your taxes. I've never done it but I understand they know all about the loopholes and stuff.

Ever try to find a open source tax preperation program? Doesn't exist.

Maybe. But there is a free tax preparation program for Windows, if your needs aren't too exotic (TaxAct)

The software can be downloaded or used over the web.

• TaxACT
• TaxCut
• TaxSlayer
• TurboTax

Check out TaxAct. Their basic version is free, and came pretty close to what Kiplinger TaxCut did when I compared them last year. I didn't try the deluxe version, but it's come down to something like $7.00 if you buy it online.

And just so you're not surprised, you do realize that E-filing your taxes isn't free, right? It costs like 5 bucks or something like that. The "Free E-Filing" in TaxCut and TurboTax is a mail-in rebate on the cost of your E-Filing.