The QuickTax 2009 giveaway is now closed. The winner, Jim Squires, has been contacted but I haven’t heard back from him. Jim, if you are reading this, check your email for the winner notification and get back to me. If not, I’ll be picking a new winner.
In addition to entering in the giveaway, readers asked a number of questions in the comments section of the post. I’ll try and answer some of them in this post.
DownshiftDad (and many others) asked:
Any word on a Mac version? They disappointed me a few years ago by discontinuing it.
Here’s what Geoff Morgan of Intuit Canada said about the Mac version: “For Mac users, we offer QuickTax Online. The look and feel of QuickTax Standard, Platinum and Business Unincorporated are almost identical to the desktop version, with a couple differences. Some tools in the Online versions feature enhanced graphical tools. Probably most relevant to you, the Online versions of QuickTax are interview-only, there are no forms.
QuickTax Online is the extent of our Mac offerings as of today. Intuit Canada pulled our Quicken and QuickBooks for Mac desktop products from the market a few years ago. Demand for the Mac version was low, so we focused our development resources where the vast majority of our customers were, which was PC.
While Mac’s share remains approximately 10-12% of the overall market, it’s an increasingly important consumer and small business segment for us, and we’re working to address it. (Note: We’re a publicly traded company, so I can’t make forward-looking statements.)”
Barry asks:
I also would like to know if you will be reviewing the real free options such as StudioTax and Udotaxes.
I do plan to write about competing software products in the future and time permitting, compare the tax returns generated by tax software from different vendors and report back on what I find. I plan to test drive StudioTax and if there are enough new features to warrant a post, I’ll definitely highlight them. However, I should point out that I requested a meeting with the folks behind StudioTax and did not hear back. My job becomes much easier when someone can just tell me what’s new with their software and I don’t have to go digging through tax software. Udotaxes is a new name to me, so thank you Barry (and thanks for recommending StudioTax earlier) for bringing it to my attention.
Ken asks:
Do these tax programs just interview you? Do you still get the capability to go to each form and enter your own data after the interview process?
The desktop versions of QuickTax allow you to input tax information either through the interview method or directly into the forms. It also allows you to switch back and forth between the two. Other software products use either the interview method or the forms method.
Aolis says:
You didn’t explain what the differences are between the versions. I have filed my own taxes for over a decade but recently got married. Is it worth getting the Standard? What about for investments with capital gains?
The main difference between Basic, Standard and Platinum versions lies in the range of questions asked during the interview process. If you are comfortable directly inputting data with the forms method the Basic version should be sufficient for you.
Stay tuned as I have more tax software reviews and giveaways coming up.
