Canadian Capitalist » Software

What’s New in TurboTax 2010

Canadian Capitalist — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:19:55 +0000

Canada’s leading tax software product, QuickTax has been rebranded as TurboTax this year. Recently, I asked Intuit executives, Geoff Morgan and his colleague Cam Moore, about the name change and to provide us a rundown of what’s new this year. Here’s what I found:

The QuickTax name was changed to reduce confusion with TurboTax and to take advantage of TurboTax advertising spilling over into Canada. The underlying software remains the same and is still being developed in Edmonton and Mississauga.
TurboTax comes in four flavours: Basic (retails for $19.99), Standard (retails for $39.99), Premier (retails for $69.99) and Home & Business (retails for $99.99). All flavours allow users to prepare their taxes with either an interview method or directly using forms or switching back and forth between the two. The main difference between various product flavours lies in the range and sophistication of the interview process. For example, the Premier edition includes extra guidance if you sold stocks, bonds or mutual funds in 2010. But if you are comfortable preparing your taxes directly with the forms and don’t need any guidance, Basic should be sufficient for your purposes.
You can file up to 8 returns with Basic and Standard and up to 12 returns with Premier and Home & Business.
Two new features were introduced in TurboTax 2010: Mapping icons to provide taxpayers with a visual representation of where they are in the tax preparation process and setting flags to remind users of missing charitable donation slips, T-slips yet to receive etc. I can see the utility of the flagging feature because right now, I write down everything I need to double check and manually double check everything before netfiling.
The new solidarity tax credit (an average of $500 tax credit per household available to Quebec taxpayers who have registered for direct deposit) is supported in TurboTax. The software also supports automatic download of Relevés from Revenu Québec.
Features such as Life Changes Profiling, importing tax data from UFile or H&R Block, expanded support options (see What’s new in QuickTax 2009) and Audit defence ($39.99 for individuals and $49.99 for Incorporated, see What’s new in QuickTax 2008) introduced in past years are back again.
Mac users looking for a desktop product are out of luck once again and have to make do with TurboTax Online.
Qualifying tax payers may be able to file their taxes for free with the TurboTax Free or TurboTax Student through turbotax.ca. Military personnel who performed active duty overseas are eligible to file for free.

I haven’t had a chance to test drive TurboTax just yet, so watch for a future post on my impressions of the new features. TurboTax is available at Staples, Future Shop, Best Buy and other fine retailers. It can also be downloaded from turbotax.ca. Wal-Mart is selling TurboTax Standard for $29.97 ($10 off the retail price) until February 10, 2010.

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Quick Review: UDoTaxes 2009

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:22:17 +0000

If you are looking for free software for filing your taxes, you now have a choice to make. StudioTax is once again available for the 2009 tax year and in my limited test drive of the 2009 edition, I found it to have the same high quality and ease-of-use that I noted in my original review. But UDoTaxes, which is also free to download and free to print and file or NETFILE offers an equally good alternative. Just like StudioTax, the developers behind UDoTaxes ask for nothing more than a voluntary contribution via PayPal to support their efforts. UDoTaxes supports the direct entry method of preparing taxes and though the software has a list of interview questions, the interview method is fairly basic.

I downloaded and installed UDoTaxes on my Windows Vista laptop and when I ran the software for the first time, it prompted for the usual information such as name, SIN number, Mailing address etc. and created the tax returns for the taxpayer and spouse. The software looks pleasing and follows the typical pattern of listing the summary and forms navigation on the left-hand pane and clickable CRA tax forms on the right-hand pane. You can enter tax data through the T-slips, which look exactly like the ones you receive in the mail. The T-slip screens can be accessed either through the toolbar icons or from the form list or by clicking the corresponding box in the T1 General screen.

UDoTaxes has some clever touches. Clicking on a box in the T1 General lists the related forms, which allows you to select the one you want to work with. If a form is incomplete, it is prefixed with an “x” button the forms panel. A RRSP Optimizer and a Pension Split Optimizer are built into the tool. In my opinion, UDoTaxes looks just a bit more polished and a little bit more responsive than StudioTax but both products are extremely good and the price is right.

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Free Filing Options from UFile.ca and Giveaway

Canadian Capitalist — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:16:02 +0000

UFile.ca, a web-based tax software, is offering several free ways for Canadians to prepare their 2009 taxes:

Free File Friday for Seniors: On February 26, 2010, tax payers 60 years or over can open a tax file and file their taxes at a later date for free. Check this web page for more details.
Students, regardless of income level, can file their taxes through UFile.ca at anytime through the tax season. More details are available here.
Families with total income of $20,000 or less are not charged a fee to NETFILE or print their tax return.

Giveaway: I am giving away 10 vouchers that can be used to prepare and file an entire family’s tax returns at UFile.ca. You can enter by simply leaving a comment in this post (please do not send an entry via email) and don’t forget to include your email address. If you are reading this through your favourite RSS Reader, you have to click through to the website and scroll to the bottom of the page and type in your comment. Some quick rules: (1) Deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, February 26, 2010. (2) One entry per person. (3) Canadian residents only. (4) I treat your privacy very seriously. Your email will be used for the sole purpose of contacting you if you happen to win. (5) I’ll pick ten entries at random and announce the winner after the deadline.

Go Canada! Go!

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Questions regarding QuickTax 2009

Canadian Capitalist — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:17:10 +0000

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.

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What’s new in QuickTax 2009 (and Giveaway)

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:17:42 +0000

QuickTax is Canada’s leading tax software product and it is easy to see why. When compared with all its competitors, QuickTax has the slickest and most intuitive interface and provides the maximum flexibility by allowing users to prepare their taxes with either the interview method or directly using forms or switching back and forth between the two. As in previous years, QuickTax Desktop software comes in four main flavours: Basic ($19.99), Standard ($39.99), Platinum ($69.99) and Business Unincorporated ($99.99). All flavours allow you to file eight income tax returns (same as last year) and the main difference between the various product tiers lies in the range and sophistication of the interview process. If you are comfortable preparing your taxes directly with the forms and don’t need any guidance, Basic should be sufficient for your purposes.

I asked QuickTax executives to give us a rundown on what’s new this year. Here’s what they told me (my comments are in italics):

Life Changes Profiling, available on Standard and higher tiers, guides tax filers through life changes that affect their tax return such as a marriage, a new baby, starting a business or going back to school. In my limited test drive of QuickTax Standard so far, I found this feature to be well integrated within the interview process.
You can now import 2008 tax data from UFile or H&R Block and automatically import tax slips from epost.ca, CanadaHelps.org and RRSP providers. A lot of tax filers seem to demand an import feature but I find this to be of marginal use. After all, how long does it take to type in your name, date of birth, address and SIN number? However, I can see directly importing tax forms being useful in eliminating input errors.
QuickTax has expanded its support options and offers free technical support through phone, chat and email for all product tiers. A new feature called “Ask a Tax Expert”, which costs $15, allows tax filers to ask unlimited questions and receive responses directly from a taxexpert. I found that QuickTax has integrated its community within Standard, which might be useful if you are stuck. For example, the screen where you enter your income slips has, on the right sidebar, useful questions like “Where do you enter union and professional dues?”, “I’ve cashed bonds. Where do I enter them on my tax return?”, etc. The answers come from QuickTax community of users but a quick check revealed that the quality of responses is very good.
Audit defence was successful last year and is once again available for $39.99 this year. I wrote about this last year and have little to add to my comments. See post What’s new in QuickTax 2008.
The online version of QuickTax has two free options. QuickTax Free Online and QuickTax Student Online. If you are preparing just one return and are comfortable preparing taxes over the Internet, the online versions of Standard ($16.99) and Platinum ($29.99) are much cheaper.

Giveaway: I received copies of Standard and Platinum versions of QuickTax 2009 for review purposes. I have installed and test driven the Standard version but I don’t think I’ll have the time to check out the Platinum version. That’s where you come in. I’m giving away one copy of QuickTax 2009 Platinum (retail value of $69.99) to a lucky reader. You can enter by simply leaving a comment in this post (please do not send an entry via email) and don’t forget to include your email address. If you are reading this through your favourite RSS Reader, you have to click through to the website and scroll to the bottom of the page and type in your comment. Some quick rules: (1) Deadline for entries is 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, January 26, 2010. (2) One entry per person. (3) Canadian residents only. (4) I treat your privacy very seriously. Your email will be used for the sole purpose of contacting you if you happen to win. (5) I’ll pick one entry at random and announce the winner after the deadline.

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What’s New in StudioTax 2008?

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:44:10 +0000

Last year, I reviewed StudioTax, found it to be of very good quality and ended up Netfiling our taxes using it. Many Canadians seem to agree — StudioTax reports that more than 100,000 taxpayers used the software to file their returns in 2007. I asked the developer of the software for an update on what’s new for the 2008 tax year and here’s what I found:

StudioTax now has the ability to split pension income for senior couples.
Taxpayers can now print a PDF copy of their return without installing third-party software such as CutePDF. Those filing paper returns can select the forms they would like to print.
The forms for inputting the T-slip information has been cleaned up. Reporting your share of interest, dividend and distribution income from joint accounts has been made automatic.
StudioTax now automatically updates itself by checking if a later version of the software is available on the website.
StudioTax has already received Netfile certification from the Canada Revenue Agency. The Netfile-certified version will be available on the website shortly.

The developers are hoping to have a Mac OS version of the software available for Apple users in the near future. Also in the works: software for filing Quebec provincial taxes.

The personal version of StudioTax is free, though the developers are asking for a donation to support their efforts. They are also diversifying by releasing an enterprise version of StudioTax for professional tax preparers. The enterprise version can be used to E-File tax returns. The first 20 returns are free but heavy-duty users are required to buy a license (cost $150) for unlimited returns.

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What’s New in QuickTax 2008?

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:26:22 +0000

After a less than stellar experience trying to sell less product for the same price, Intuit is taking a new tack this year – it is offering a feature called Audit Defence that QuickTax users can optionally purchase (at a cost of $39.99 per return) when preparing their taxes. According to Intuit, QuickTax users who purchase Audit Defence can avail the help of an experienced tax professional who will deal with the CRA in the event a taxpayer is audited.

QuickTax users will be faced with two questions this year: (1) Should they consider buying Audit Defence? (2) Assuming a taxpayer likes the idea of not having to face CRA alone, can they obtain representation cheaper elsewhere?

The type of users who do their own taxes will typically have very simple tax situations – they have one or two T4s, some RRSP contributions, childcare expenses, charitable donations, dividend and interest income and perhaps a small home-based business – and presumably doesn’t involve a deep understanding of the tax code. In these cases, an “audit” is usually nothing more than the CRA checking to see if they actually have the receipts. For instance, recently my wife’s tax return was selected for review. CRA wanted to see receipts to support her claim for child care expenses, which is a relatively straightforward affair and in my opinion, doesn’t justify paying for expert representation.

Some taxpayers would still rather not face the CRA by themselves, which is understandable considering the awesome power the tax agency wields. They may want to check out the new kid in the block: H&R Block is now selling desktop and web-based tax software for the same price as QuickTax Standard but it looks like they throw in a similar feature called Audit Assistance for free.

Also new this year in QuickTax: a pension income optimizer to take advantage of the new rules that allow seniors couples to split pension income. To my knowledge, UFile was the only software that included an optimizer last year.

Now that QuickTax has increased the number of returns, would you consider going back? Have you been audited by the CRA? If so, what was your experience like? What is your take on Audit Defence? Is it, as Michael James wondered in a recent post, similar to extended warranties sold by retailers? Is this another instance where it is cheaper to self-insure (i.e. hire expert representation after the CRA sends an audit notice)?

[Edit: The original post incorrectly referred to QuickTax 2007. It has now been corrected]

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QuickTax responds to complaints

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:16:32 +0000

Last year, QuickTax frustrated a lot of loyal customers by drastically reducing the number of returns that can be filed with the Standard version. This year, Intuit seems to have listened to its customers: the number of returns that can be filed with all flavours of QuickTax is back up to 8 for the 2008 tax year. The marketing message is also much improved: the website now makes it clear that the more expensive Platinum and Unincorporated versions provide “enhanced guidance & tax-saving tips for investments and rental properties”. The pricing structure remains the same — Basic costs $19.99, Standard $39.99, Platinum $69.99 and Unincorporated $99.99. The Standard version should suffice for most users who have a bit of investment, rental property or self-employment income and don’t mind interacting with the forms directly.

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Slow Support at UFile

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:41:59 +0000

[Update: Here's an email from Joanne Birtch, Vice-President Marketing and New Business Development, Dr. Tax Software Inc. reproduced with permission:

"I am writing about your blog entry called Slow Support at UFile. The subject title no longer reflects the reality at UFile. Our support team has made an enormous effort to improve its response times due in part to the impact of your article. However, despite these improvements, UFile continues to be tarred with a very old and unflattering brush.

While not wishing to stop the dialogue, I would appreciate it if this blog could be updated to reflect today's reality."]

[Update 2: Note that this blog has no affiliation with UFile. If you need support with your UFile tax software, the contact information for UFile is available here.]

If you are considering switching to UFile (read my review) this year, there is one huge drawback you need to be aware of: the support is really slow. Firstly, UFile does not offer phone support. If you encounter a problem with the software or need some help, the only way to currently contact UFile is through email (the website says that live chat support will be available later).

Many readers have commented on their frustration with UFile’s slow response times and I personally experienced it as well. I sent a quick question on March 4, 2008 and received a response on March 10th, which is unacceptably slow in my opinion. QuickTax offers phone support for Standard or higher but it wouldn’t be a fair comparison due to its higher price. However, QuickTax Basic has the same sticker price as UFile and support is by email only but I found their response to be a lot faster – less than 24 hours.

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Which Tax Software?

Canadian Capitalist — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:12:46 +0000

The T4s and T5s have arrived and you are looking to buy software to do your taxes. Here’s a guide to figuring out if you should stick to the software you are familiar with or check out the competition:

QuickTax: If you do taxes for your extended family, you may want to think twice before buying QuickTax because the number of returns has been reduced this year from 5 to 2. You can still prepare up to 18 more returns for taxpayers with less than $25K in income but otherwise have to shell out $10 to $15 extra per return. If you prepare taxes for you, your spouse and three others, you may have to pay $45 more than you did last year. Initially, there was some confusion about whether you’ll have to buy the expensive versions if you have capital gains, business income etc. but QuickTax assures us that all its products can handle every tax situation but the optimizers are only available in specific products.
Bottom Line: If you prepare 2 returns or less and are a QuickTax user you may want to continue to do so. Otherwise, you may to check out the competition because you’ll be paying more.
UFile: UFile is significantly cheaper ($19.99 at Future Shop or Best Buy) than QuickTax Standard but you’ll have to put up with the interview method instead of entering information directly. On the bright side, UFile allows you to file up to 8 tax returns.
Bottom Line: If you prepare taxes for your extended family, UFile’s eight returns could be the deciding factor. Note that if you need help, you’ll have to send them e-mail; there is no phone support.

[Update: James Daw wrote in The Star that UFile has an optimizer that allows senior couples to split pension income to save the most tax.]
StudioTax: Though I’ve purchased a copy of UFile, I’m using StudioTax to file our taxes this year. I like the fact that I can enter directly into forms but I’ve found that with StudioTax you really need to know what you are doing. For instance, StudioTax will allow you to enter more in net capital losses of prior years in Line 253 of the T1, which I believe is wrong. Line 253 should be equal to or less than taxable gains in the current year. The product is free to download and install and all the developers behind the product ask is a donation.
Bottom Line: If you like the direct-entry method and are familiar with the tax forms, you may want to consider StudioTax.

You may also want to check out GenuTax and TaxFreeWay.

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