You'll Still Hate Filing Taxes, But at Least It's Easier with TurboTax Deluxe (2009)

Another year is past, and once again it’s time for the annual hair-reduction program known as filling out your taxes, forking over too much money to the IRS, etc. But here I sit, armed with a copy of TurboTax Deluxe Federal + E-File (2009), a pile of W-2s and 10-whatevers, spreadhseets deductions, and the bar of soap I'll probably need for washing out my mouth: I'm good go.

With the exception of the year I used H & R Block On-Line to file, I’ve been using TurboTax since the mid-nineties.  Sometimes it’s Deluxe, sometimes Basic, sometimes Federal + State, sometimes Federal only. I’ve e-filed for about ten years. Except for the Cdilla licensing fiasco in 2002, I’ve never had a serious problem with the software (though it isn’t idiot-proof). Here’s this year’s story

I installed from CD-ROM, though a download is available (as is an almost identical on-line version). Installation took just a few minutes. I then had to update (the CDs are distributed before the year's tax code is finished). That took a couple of minutes over broadband. Once done, I went straight into filling out the forms.  Here’s how that goes…

Entering income and deductions is either through a “Let us Guide You” process (suggested for newbies) or by “exploring” the process (for experienced users). Either way follows the same steps one would take if filling out the forms on paper:

Personal information:  TurboTax automatically copies personal information from last year’s return if it’s on the current computer; you can also enter by hand or correct anything that’s changed from last year.

Income:  You can hand-enter W-2 information, and (for some employers) you’ve been able to download W-2 information via the web for the past few years. I’ve never downloaded, myself.  You can also download (if available) or hand-enter interest and dividend income, investment income, and the like – a total of nine different income sources.

While in this process, you can divert to filling out profit or loss from a business (IRS Schedule C) sheet(s).  Note that self-employment taxes are automatically figured in this section. If you don’t take some of the more common business deductions (health insurance, mileage) the program “nudges” you to take a look at the topic -- it’s part of the Maximize Your Deduction process.

Deductions: Step-by-step, progress through common and few uncommon deductions. Where there are subsidiary calculations (e.g., maximum deductions for home equity loans), rules and limits are built into the process.  Deductions include the usual biggies – house, medical, charitable – and also everything that’s subject to the two-percent limitation (casualty and loss, business expenses). For charitable deductions, you can download your information directly from Intuit’s free on-line utility ItsDeductible (TurboTax Deluxe and higher only; not available for Basic). For all deductions (for income and expenses as well), you can import directly from Intuit’s Quicken product (assuming you’ve good records for the tax year).

There are a total of ten different deductions/credits sections. Once again, when you’ve completed the section you get a programmatic nudge to look at any common deductions you haven’t claimed, sort of just in case.

When Income and Deductions sections are complete, the program runs a check on the input -- here’s where the “not idiot-proof” part comes in. If you fail to fill in a necessary blank, you’ll be prompted to correct it: so far, so good. The idiot-proofing part? for 2009, there’s a tax credit for housing people displaced by natural disasters. As a test, I input information for a hypothetical person displaced by 2008’s Hurricane Ike from Galveston, TX – including name/SSN, address, and number of days. In the check, I was warned that the displaced person’s home address had to be in part of the country flooded in summer 2009. I plugged in Indiana instead of Texas, and it went through – even though there’s no Galveston, IN, and if there were its zip code would start with 4 instead of 7. I’m betting that a lot of the errors “not caught” by TurboTax are of this sort…

State Tax: According to TurboTax, “Lucky [me] – [my] state does not have a personal income tax…” for those of you who live in states that have personal income taxes, well, let me just say it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be…

Wrap-up: Next is an automatic step in which TurboTax analyzes the return. The program guarantees you’ll pay the minimum tax. The return is also guaranteed 100% accurate or Intuit will pay any penalty and interest – a final check for errors and missing information is run at this time (still not idiot-proof, though). And last, the return is analyzed for “audit risk” based on known IRS flags (home office, schedule C, high charitable deductions, etc.).

Print and File:  You can e-file up to five returns for free (a limit set by the IRS, not intuit). You can also print and snail mail. Either way, you can save a pdf copy to your computer as desired. Per the IRS regulations, you need to supply identifying information: the PIN(s) you used for last year’e e-file or the AGI (adjusted gross income) from last year’s return. When that’s over, you’re done.

Filling in this year’s forms took me perhaps three hours, because I wasn’t current with either Quicken or ItsDeductible, which would be a lot quicker (I've already set up my 2010 ItsDeductible file - it's free, why not?). If you can’t finish it all in one sitting, by the way, you can set a flag and return to your stopping point. You can also set flags throughout for information you want to re-visit.

Once you’ve entered your income and withholding information, the program tracks the current status of your tax bill – a green number for a refund and a red number for a tax bill. This lets you do things like test the potential change in your tax bill from funding an IRA (which you can still do up until midnight on April 15th).

An aside: One thing most people don’t know is that if you’re nostalgic for the smeary newsprint versions of forms, you can change the interface to let you fill in facsimiles of those forms. Kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

When it comes to help: TurboTax has taken several approaches over the years. At one time, the Deluxe version had cute videos as part of the help, but they’ve been jettisoned in favor of a “Live Community” that (supposedly) is there to answer your questions. That’s the only free option for help with tax questions. Of course there are many in-context links (“explain this” and  “see more information”) to On-Demand Tax Guidance  throughout the interface, which includes glossary entries.

For another $30 (for the first 20 minutes) you can get “one-on-one answers”” from a “tax expert.” For a one-time fee of $40, your return will be reviewed by an “pro.” And for another $40, you can buy an AuditDefense insurance policy. As in past years, I remain unimpressed by the quality of the help in the “free” forums. I’ve seeded the forums with questions to which I already know the answer in the past and gotten bogus information. I would not depend on this “help” for complex situations – I’m more inclined to call the IRS to ask whether I can charge off my Netflix fees against the income I make from movie reviews (IRS tells me that if I think I can support the deduction in an audit, it’s my call…) For my money, this “forum” approach is a profoundly negative outgrowth of social networking. I’d hate to need help and depend on those people…

Will I Buy TurboTax Again Next Year? Almost certainly. Using the software makes completing and filing my return almost foolproof, even though I’ve been known to add two and two to get fifty-four. I can also use the software later in the year to get a feeling for how shifting income and deductions will change my tax liability next year, though of course impending tax law changes can make this a guessing game. Now whether you should buy the product is another question. Here are some things to continue (points I make every year):

• Shelling out the MSRP $49.99 is a waste of money if your tax situation is dirt-simple. If you have a few deductions to apply, TurboTax Basic would be better, but if you don't itemize it makes no sense. You can use the free on-line Federal version. Besides, if you can't fill out a 1040A or a 1040EZ without this kind of help, you probably can't install and run the software, either.
• TurboTax Deluxe can be indispensable if you have complex income and deductions, including entries for self-employment or farming/ranching. If you have lots of income from investments or you're a slumlord with a bunch of rental properties, you may want to step up to the Business or Premier edition (n additional $20 or so). Trust me: they’ll nag you to upgrade if they think you need a more powerful version.
• You can easily save the software's cost by finding a single missed deduction - especially with the "Maximize Your Deductions" process.

I've used both Basic and Deluxe, and I’ve found that either one is worth having on my side.

Closing Recommendation: In truth, I don't know what I'd do without Turbo Tax - and it's a good bet that I'll buy it again next year. Highly recommended. Happy Tax Day!

Need to Be in Two Places at Once? Use GoToMeeting!

I've got an hour-long meeting at my Houston office in a couple of minutes with a couple of users from The Netherlands and the product manager from Canada. We'll demonstrate features of the software, conduct a little one-on-one training, and follow up on some support questions - and not one of us ever has to leave his desk: we're doing a GoToMeeting.

You've never used GoToMeeting? It's a simple concept, really; sort of an on-line conference calls with streaming video. People sitting at computer screens (Mac or Windows) anywhere in the world all see the same screen and hear the same audio simultaneously. We use it for sales presentations, software demos, light training, and employee meetings. We display PowerPoint presentations, videos, or show live demonstrations of our proprietary software: no matter what software is showing, the screen contents are the same for everyone who's watching.

We have a corporate license for GoToMeeting, which allows up to twenty-five connections to a meeting - since any participant can be routed through a projector, way more than twenty-five people can be watching at any time. Corporate also licenses any of several "organizers," who can initiate a meeting. Smaller shops can buy an individual license, which allows up to fifteen participants but has a single organizer license. Citrix also licenses GoToWebinar for up to 1000 participants (way beyond our needs). Here's how things work:

Using GoToMeeting as an Organizer: Before a meeting can take place, the software must be downloaded from the Citrix website and the license registered. Organizer licenses are tied to specific email and password pairs. Once registered, you can create a meeting on the fly - you'll be prompted for the emails of attendees to join immediately - or schedule meetings in advance. Either way, invitees receive email notification of your meeting. For scheduled meetings, GoToMeeting's invitation converts the meeting time to local time (where local is defined by the receiving computer's operating system). Outlook users find the meeting added to their calendar automatically, including a copy of the unique URL assigned to the meeting.

At the scheduled time, participants - including organizer - join by clicking on the "Join my meeting" link. This fires off a browser session that connects to the Citrix server. Those on the same network need only click the link; for security purposes others have to enter a nine-digit access code. The audio portion can be carried as a VOIP signal, or attendees may dial in on a telephone; dialing in requires users to enter a PIN (shown in the invitation) for security. Dial-up service includes the ability to mute and un-mute. For small meetings, you can also just call the other attendee(s) directly.

Using GoToMeeting as an Attendee: The first time you join a GoToMeeting, you must install a small executable program - this is normal (WebEx requires a download, too). Then click on the link in the invitation or paste it into the internet browser address bar. You can either call the phone number (long-distance charges apply) or use a headset and microphone for the VOIP option. Then, sit back and "attend."

Useful Features:
•  Any member of the audience can become the presenter, at which time his or her screen becomes visible to all attendees. The organizer controls which audience member is presenter.
•  Regardless of who is presenting, any member may take control of the presenter's screen and cursor. This allows one person to run programs on another's desktop while everyone else watches. Any attendee can have control of the screen that's currently active. The organizer controls this function as well.
•  Each participant has mute and volume controls for the audio, and can switch between phone and VOIP as needed.
•  The interface includes a chat mode so attendees can type questions for the organizer or for the entire audience.
• Whoever is presenting can designate what view is broadcast such as a blank desktop, the entire desktop, or a specific application. This is great for invisibly taking notes or answering chats while others are watching your screen.
•  The audio and video can be recorded (audio can be recorded only when using the designated telephone lines and/or VOIP); the chat log as well

Costs: Individual GoToMeeting license fees are month-to-month basis or annual. Corporate license pricing is dependent on the number of seats used. There are no additional charges for meetings and no restrictions: as long as the license is current, meetings may be of any duration. The audio is included free, although normal phone charges - including long distance - apply if not using VOIP. There is not currently a toll-free option.

My Experience: My GoToMeeting experience has been very positive. The executable is small and downloads quickly, since the bulk of the processing is handled by the Citrix servers. You are at the mercy of the available bandwidth; so heavy traffic on your network can degrade the signal quality and very long-distance meetings (I've been on meetings to Asia and Africa) can sometimes be slow - especially if the presentation is very graphically intensive. In my meetings I've found that using a headset and microphone for the audio is vastly preferable to a telephone, especially a speakerphone (even full duplex); the invitations suggest this option. A USB headset seems to give much better results than a headset using pin plugs; not sure why. I've attended meetings from my office and from client offices, from my home, and even from hotel rooms: anywhere there's a broadband connection can become a remote office!

I've been on dozens, perhaps hundreds of GoToMeetings and have yet to see one fail: I'm sold. Though a web conference of this sort will never replace face to face meetings, there is no doubt that the technology has made long-distance collaboration much easier even while it's reduced the need for expensive travel. 

In fact, about the only thing I don't like about GoToMeeting is how slowly I accrue frequent-flyer mileage these days