Tax Day Epitaph--Do Mac Tax Applications Suck?

Readers responded to yesterday's post about my problems with Kiplinger TaxCut for the Mac and recounted their difficulties with TaxCut AND MacInTax. So, unfortunately, I'm not alone and it appears that there's no Mac tax software that's safe. Some had far greater problems such as Dan Knight with TaxCut, "We used it, did our taxes, then discovered we'd been given one piece of incorrect information. We were absolutely unable to open our Save file or the backup TaxCut created. We had to enter each and every bit of data over again." A MacInTax example from Peter Chin, "I was manually rechecking the entries and found that Macintax FAILED to copy over my state and local taxes paid from the Federal W-2 I had already entered, causing me to think that I owed money statewise! Once I manually re-entered the state and local taxes paid, Macintax said I was owed money! I wound up redoing everything by hand and re-entering everything from scratch at 2:30AM!"

No software is perfect and I know that many people had no problems with either package. However, I have never had these kinds of serious problems in eight previous years of using MacInTax and the Windows version of TaxCut on Virtual PC last year. The printing problem I encountered with TaxCut/Windows/VPC was the fault of VPC. Perhaps using the recently released Mac OS 9.0.4, as I did, had something to do with the serious errors.

Last minute technical support is no help. I called the TaxCut support line and was told that the average wait was over 15 minutes. I waited 30 and never got a pick up. I emailed TaxCut support and got a non-helpful response. I had asked what to do about TaxCut letting me eFile my federal and one state return without including the ECN (electronic signature) and that TaxCut had locked me out of the final steps necessary to complete my filing when I went back and added it. The reply essentially said no problem, just make the corrections and file a 1040X. Huh? Actually, if I can't retransmit to add the ECN, I've got to file a signed paper form 8453-OL. Here's Rob Kennedy's statement on TaxCut.

-- Tax Day USA, Apr. 17 --

Note: Sorry but there will be no update today, partly in observance of the most disliked but essential day of the year in the USA and partly thanks to the buggy Kiplinger TaxCut '99 for the Macintosh that has so far kept me from completing my obligation. The largest bugs encountered are:

1. Failure to enter one 1099-MISC form's value in the right place on Schedule E. This required deleting the form and an override entry.

2. Failure to enter essential data on Form 4562 when listing more than 2 depreciation items in the worksheets. This kept e-File from working and the override failed to work on the placed-in-service date entry. The only workaround was to delete all detailed worksheet listings and lump all depreciated items into one or two lines.

3. Failure to ask for my ECN while e-Filing my federal return. Maybe the ECN will be requested when the return is accepted or, shudder, rejected tonight.

4. Failure to carry bank information from my federal return to my state return despite the box to do so being checked. The workaround was to find the correct worksheet and reenter the information.

Needless to say, I am not presently inclined to recommend TaxCut despite it's glowing reviews. In addition to the bugs, many of the state entries have inadequate descriptions and no help instructions. Finally, the application unexpectedly quit about 20 per cent of the time that it accessed the CD which was fixed by not inserting the CD and paranoidly saving after every screen. I certainly won't use it next year unless I discover that the problems are somehow my fault.

-- Weekend, Apr. 15-16 --