Intuit TurboTax Premier for Tax Year 2004 Full Version for PC, Mac (292582)

Pros: Good help files (sometimes more accurate than the IRS documents linked to), allows overrides
Cons: navigation difficulties, requires overrides, prepares excess forms.

I finally E-filed for the first time, this year not wanting to stand in line at the post office on April 15 First, let me explain my background in taxes. I've been a professional tax preparer (registered in California 1990-1997. I've stated ...

Pros: MUCH easier than flipping paper pages and getting forms from your local library.
Cons: "One-click Update" feature didn't work; poor execution/explanation of remedy.

UPDATE As Of Feb 8, 2006 for 2005 Tax Year: IMPORTANT FYI TO POTENTIAL BUYERS: I was just prepping to start our taxes for this year (2005), fully expecting to be able to update last year's version of Turbotax to this year's version, hoping ...

Pros: It makes really nice printouts and PDFs
Cons: It is suitable for simple taxes only.

This product was intensely hyped by my colleagues for years. I finally tried it in 2003. I bought it to help me do taxes on my personal house that moved out of and placed into rental service. TurboTax did an extremely poor job. It made ...

Pros: none that will help this program
Cons: wrong computation too complicated to navigate

It astounds me that they could get it so wrong. I bought TurboTax "premier" (investing the extra $10 or so) to avoid any headaches since we sold a rental property this year (one we had lived in for at least 2 of the past 5 years). No matter what I tried-I could not get this lousy program to give me the Exclusion from capital gains on the sale. I answered all of the questions it gave me and still, no exclusion. The exclusion is spelled out in black & white in the IRS forms. Guess Intuit did not read them?

Pros: does basic calculations
Cons: hard to install, uninformative, hard to navigate, expensive

I've used TurboTax for 4 years. This year is the last. Installing it was a nightmare - a simple warning that virus protection and AdWare had to be disabled prior to installation would have saved me hours. Once in the program, it provided disappointingly little explanation of key terms. Additional information required more clicks than in the past. Navigating from place to place within the interview was also more difficult than in prior years. Finally, it failed to import information readily available in the federal form to the state form, and then provided no easy link to get the information from the federal form. I'll pay more for quality, but this was just an uninformative headache.