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TurboTax Business 2003

TurboTax Business 2003

List Price: $99.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Probably good software, if it could be used.
Review: Got the software three weeks ago, but still can't use it -- the required "manual update" will not be available until after February 20, just about three short weeks before the corporate filing deadline of March 15. Frankly, I'm staggered by the contempt that Intuit displays towards its business customers. Anyone know of a better package for next year?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Probably good software, if it could be used.
Review: Got the software three weeks ago, but still can't use it -- the required "manual update" will not be available until after February 20, just about three short weeks before the corporate filing deadline of March 15. Frankly, I'm staggered by the contempt that Intuit displays towards its business customers. Anyone know of a better package for next year?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: What's all the fuss???
Review: I am not a CPA, nor am I a tax expert. However, I simply read the instructions, followed the recommendations, referred to my prior year 1120S for some minor guidance, and all seems to have gone just fine. The tax return went in the mail yesterday!

Maybe I'm blessed with a simple business model or lack some of the complications and complexities compared to the other reviewers but I really cannot complain about this product. I have had frustrating experiences with Intuit in the past but not this time.

My final comment is this: if the $100 I spent on this software helps me to permanently avoid the annual $2,000 payment to my CPA for tax preparation, then I'll gladly buy Turbo Tax Business year after year. The $1,900 difference will go to a Hawaiian vacation! Mahalo, Intuit!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: What's all the fuss???
Review: In my opinion, I'm sorry to say, TurboTax Business is about as useless as you can get. During the last three years I've used it and the same deficiencies continue with more being added "every day".

The most disturbing deficiency is when errors are found during the review. First of all these errors are simple reconciliations of two lines in the return. The software performs the math and numbers are entered through worksheets. However, when the review finds a reconciliation error, all the software says is something like "line 6 on form x is not equal to line 9 on form y". When you search for help, all it says is "line 6 on form x must equal to line 9 on form y", and that's all. To resolve the problem I've had to read the appropriate pubs, instructions, and forms myself.

Also, the itemization of the deduction isn't much better than paper and pencil. To use the software you need to know more than the software.

Great, thanks for nothing!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Your killing me!
Review: In my opinion, I'm sorry to say, TurboTax Business is about as useless as you can get. During the last three years I've used it and the same deficiencies continue with more being added "every day".

The most disturbing deficiency is when errors are found during the review. First of all these errors are simple reconciliations of two lines in the return. The software performs the math and numbers are entered through worksheets. However, when the review finds a reconciliation error, all the software says is something like "line 6 on form x is not equal to line 9 on form y". When you search for help, all it says is "line 6 on form x must equal to line 9 on form y", and that's all. To resolve the problem I've had to read the appropriate pubs, instructions, and forms myself.

Also, the itemization of the deduction isn't much better than paper and pencil. To use the software you need to know more than the software.

Great, thanks for nothing!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Your killing me!
Review: In my opinion, I'm sorry to say, TurboTax Business is about as useless as you can get. During the last three years I've used it and the same deficiencies continue with more being added "every day".

The most disturbing deficiency is when errors are found during the review. First of all these errors are simple reconciliations of two lines in the return. The software performs the math and numbers are entered through worksheets. However, when the review finds a reconciliation error, all the software says is something like "line 6 on form x is not equal to line 9 on form y". When you search for help, all it says is "line 6 on form x must equal to line 9 on form y", and that's all. To resolve the problem I've had to read the appropriate pubs, instructions, and forms myself.

Also, the itemization of the deduction isn't much better than paper and pencil. To use the software you need to know more than the software.

Great, thanks for nothing!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Worth it!
Review: The $100 investment in worth it! We've had to pay our tax preparer over $800 to calculate our taxes this year. We keep good records and decided to find out how close we would come to his calculations by doing it ourselves with Turbotax Business. Let's just say that next year we'll be doing our taxes ourselves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Worth it!
Review: This program proposes to assist you with filing corporate (including "S" corp) taxes.

It deserves a rating of minus 10 stars.

It is hardly more than a fill-in-the-blank set of continuous forms. It assumes you are fully familiar with the entire multi-thousand page Federal Tax Code and offers no real on-screen assistance. In a word, it is a (...) waste of time, a vast black hole of time wasteage.

Besides, it demands a fearfully long registration process just to refuse the incredibly stupid junk e-mail that Intuit will smother you in if you do not turn off its relentless marketing junk.

For all of this, you should pay $100? Not next year.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A sink hole of time and worse than useless
Review: This program proposes to assist you with filing corporate (including "S" corp) taxes.

It deserves a rating of minus 10 stars.

It is hardly more than a fill-in-the-blank set of continuous forms. It assumes you are fully familiar with the entire multi-thousand page Federal Tax Code and offers no real on-screen assistance. In a word, it is a (...) waste of time, a vast black hole of time wasteage.

Besides, it demands a fearfully long registration process just to refuse the incredibly stupid junk e-mail that Intuit will smother you in if you do not turn off its relentless marketing junk.

For all of this, you should pay $100? Not next year.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: streets ahead of the competition
Review: This year I had the unenviable experience of buying both sets of software: Tax Cut Home & Business, which failed me utterly; and TurboTax Business, which worked just fine.

Tax Cut worked fine for my 1040, and with some difficulties it also worked for a 1041 trust return. But it simply could not file a corporate tax return, 1120-A. The software was buggy, it wouldn't print a sample return, and a week before the deadline it still hadn't updated the forms. Worst of all, an attempt to update had corrupted the file. (See the agonized comments on the Tax Cut Home & Business page.)

So I ordered TurboTax Business and paid for express delivery. It worked just fine, though of course I had to enter everything anew because the Tax Cut file was corrupted.

In the future, I will stick with TurboTax Business, and add a cheapo version of the personal tax software, which is available and cheapest. (I prefer to deal directly with the forms, without interference from an "interview.") But I will never again try to save a buck with Tax Cut Home & Business.


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