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TurboTax State California 2002

TurboTax State California 2002

List Price: $29.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Program works OK - but the hassle level is VERY high
Review: First off, the program does what it needs to do - pulling in your federal tax info and completing your state taxes.

But the inconvenience level is high:

1> Product activation - it's not hard to do, but if you wind up buying a new computer/rebuilding your current computer and then having to refile taxes, you'll be stuck dealing with unhelpful Intuit employees who will want you to buy the product again.

2> Lots of updates required and the update download process is unreliable - took several tries to finally get all the downloads. I think it was 40+ files.

3> The big hassle of the rebates - I was pleasantly surprised to see that you could do the rebate online. But it turns out that it just prints a cover page (with a bar code, so it saves Intuit the work of entering your information). You still have to send everything in plus the cover page - you even have to fill out the regular rebate form, even though you just filled out everything online.

I've been a TurboTax user for the past 5 years, but I definitely will try another product for 2003.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Program works OK - but the hassle level is VERY high
Review: First off, the program does what it needs to do - pulling in your federal tax info and completing your state taxes.

But the inconvenience level is high:

1> Product activation - it's not hard to do, but if you wind up buying a new computer/rebuilding your current computer and then having to refile taxes, you'll be stuck dealing with unhelpful Intuit employees who will want you to buy the product again.

2> Lots of updates required and the update download process is unreliable - took several tries to finally get all the downloads. I think it was 40+ files.

3> The big hassle of the rebates - I was pleasantly surprised to see that you could do the rebate online. But it turns out that it just prints a cover page (with a bar code, so it saves Intuit the work of entering your information). You still have to send everything in plus the cover page - you even have to fill out the regular rebate form, even though you just filled out everything online.

I've been a TurboTax user for the past 5 years, but I definitely will try another product for 2003.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: terrible
Review: have to jump through rebates to obtain state product with deluxe. deluxe did not have necc coupon and had to waste 2 hours to finally talk to a person to figure out what to do next.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mandatory C-Dilla malware/spyware. You don't want this.
Review: Here's a quote from extremetech.com. (ExtremeTech &sister publication PC Magazine're industry leaders. You've probably heard of their most famous writer, John C. Dvorak.) (Note:Intuit-TurboTax-2002's C-Dilla wasn't different from other versions of C-Dilla. It just got lotsa attention because TurboTax *was* very popular software until C-Dilla became a part of it.)

From ET's article:
"Likely the biggest problem users have expressed, is the level at which the TurboTax licensing agreement is managed and protected with the SafeCast/C-Dilla technology. People believe C-Dilla infiltrates their system in a very insidious manner, and uses memory and resources even when TurboTax is not loaded. And some believe it has caused them serious compatibility problems with non-related CD writing operations. (PC Magazine and ExtremeTech will be conducting some tests next week to see if we can duplicate some of these problems). [....] or your customers still looking to exit TurboTax for good, the uninstaller at this link now fully removes components of SafeCast/C-Dilla that were previously mostly impossible to remove."

... If you're planning on using this product at work, forget it... your Info Technology manager will have a cow if he/she knows that you're installing destructive trojan/spyware (C-Dilla) on the company PCs. If you've already installed this software on a PC at work, let your IT manager know IMMEDIATELY, so he/she can take whatever steps are possible to remove C-Dilla.

In the 2002/2003 version of TurboTax, a great protest rose up from prominent computer-industry magazines and users, which led to Intuit/TurboTax somewhat apologizing, and offering a program that uninstalled C-Dilla after you'd uninstalled TurboTax2002. (The original uninstaller didn't remove C-Dilla.)

2004...does it have C-Dilla ? I don't know. It's not out yet. Approach with caution.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mandatory C-Dilla malware/spyware. You don't want this.
Review: Here's a quote from extremetech.com. (ExtremeTech &sister publication PC Magazine're industry leaders. You've probably heard of their most famous writer, John C. Dvorak.) (Note:Intuit-TurboTax-2002's C-Dilla wasn't different from other versions of C-Dilla. It just got lotsa attention because TurboTax *was* very popular software until C-Dilla became a part of it.)

From ET's article:
"Likely the biggest problem users have expressed, is the level at which the TurboTax licensing agreement is managed and protected with the SafeCast/C-Dilla technology. People believe C-Dilla infiltrates their system in a very insidious manner, and uses memory and resources even when TurboTax is not loaded. And some believe it has caused them serious compatibility problems with non-related CD writing operations. (PC Magazine and ExtremeTech will be conducting some tests next week to see if we can duplicate some of these problems). [....] or your customers still looking to exit TurboTax for good, the uninstaller at this link now fully removes components of SafeCast/C-Dilla that were previously mostly impossible to remove."

... If you're planning on using this product at work, forget it... your Info Technology manager will have a cow if he/she knows that you're installing destructive trojan/spyware (C-Dilla) on the company PCs. If you've already installed this software on a PC at work, let your IT manager know IMMEDIATELY, so he/she can take whatever steps are possible to remove C-Dilla.

In the 2002/2003 version of TurboTax, a great protest rose up from prominent computer-industry magazines and users, which led to Intuit/TurboTax somewhat apologizing, and offering a program that uninstalled C-Dilla after you'd uninstalled TurboTax2002. (The original uninstaller didn't remove C-Dilla.)

2004...does it have C-Dilla ? I don't know. It's not out yet. Approach with caution.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: seamless interface with federal TurboTax
Review: I found the TurboTax Premier worked well, and this state software was a seamless interface. I was not sure if I should install the State software before entering all my federal data, or afterward. I installed the TurboTax Premier (federal) software first, then installed the CA state software, then entered all the data following the interview method. Then both federal and state forms print out at the end (or e-file). Easy to use, and I expect to use it again next year.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: seamless interface with federal TurboTax
Review: I found the TurboTax Premier worked well, and this state software was a seamless interface. I was not sure if I should install the State software before entering all my federal data, or afterward. I installed the TurboTax Premier (federal) software first, then installed the CA state software, then entered all the data following the interview method. Then both federal and state forms print out at the end (or e-file). Easy to use, and I expect to use it again next year.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible, unworkable program-AVOID
Review: If you want MORE STRESS with your tax preparation, just try using this worthless program.

Last year I tried to download Turbo Tax for California and the program just wouldn't run correctly so this year I bought the CD. It doesn't work either and Intuit's "help" is worthless. The state program refuses to import some of the data from the federal program, and won't let me input the data either. So Turbo Tax keeps telling me I owe money when in fact the state owes me a refund. This is after I had to, once again, download interminable files because the state edition was released before it was ready.

I will avoid this product in the future. It's a waste of time and money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy way to complete your tax filing
Review: With the addition of the this companion state filing, it makes it easy to complete your filing requirement because turbo tax transfers all your data from your federal returns. This is a must have if you use turbotax.


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