Frugal Canadian, an accountant and a tax expert, has an excellent review of tax software products and one of her recommendations is TaxFreeway, which sells for a bargain basement price of $9.95 for unlimited tax returns. After a reader pointed out that the software is free to try (a product key is required to print or NETFILE), I downloaded and installed the product. The installer is only 4 megabytes, so the download was a breeze and should be tolerable even on dial-up internet.
Like other competing products QuickTax and TaxWiz (and probably UFile, which I haven’t tried), there are two ways of entering data: the interview method and directly entering data into the various forms. Though the user interface is not as slick as QuickTax, I found that it was fairly simple to learn to use the product. There are four panels: a summary chart, a navigate panel that can be used to add more slips (like a T4, for instance), an interview panel (that can be minimized) and a panel that displays the actual CRA forms. The summary panel, which displays a bar graph showing the total, net and taxable income, the federal and provincial tax, the tax paid and taxes owing or refund, is a very clever way of showing critical information.
Overall, despite some clunkiness, the software gets the job done. If you have any concerns about the accuracy of your tax return, it should be noted that before any software gets NETFILE certified by the Canada Revenue Agency it has to undergo extensive testing to ensure accuracy. I just wish I had paid more attention to Frugal Canadian’s post and bought TaxFreeway instead of QuickTax and saved myself $30 in the process.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 dhphelp // Feb 26, 2006 at 7:06 am
Does it import previous tax year return files from other programs (e.g. QuickTax)?
2 Frugal Canadian // Feb 26, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Glad you found the review useful.
dhphelp - Unfortunately, TaxFreeway doesn’t have the capability to import files from other programs. It will allow carryforward of files from its predecessor Taxcel, but no Intuit or other program.
3 Joe // Mar 12, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Found this for the really frugal taxpayer….
http://www.studiotax.com/en/home.htm
For 2005, it is free to download, print and NETFILE (asking for donations only).
I used it.. works good enough although the T4 entry screen should have been a bit bigger so it showed the entry spot for pension amount.
4 Canadian Capitalist // Mar 13, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Joe: I will check out studiotax. Thanks for pointing it out. “Free”/donation sounds enticing.
5 Barry // Mar 31, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Here is a complete list of 2005 CRA approved NETFILE software.
http://ca.geocities.com/barry123@rogers.com/Filing.htm
6 Canadian Capitalist // Mar 31, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Barry: That is a great summary of the NETFILE options available. Thanks!
7 Which Tax Software? // Mar 11, 2008 at 8:14 am
[...] You may also want to check out GenuTax and TaxFreeWay. [...]
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