TurboTax has had its share of issues but I came back to it because it does seem to be the best there is, but I’m knocking off a star because of the history of issues I’ve had with the program in previous years (like it not calculating tax correctly until I deleted some assets and then re-entered them). However, I was a little shocked to read that it requires 500MB of HD space PLUS up to 620MB more if Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 is not installed (Mac is only 255MB). Wow! That could be over 1GB to do taxes. How inefficient we have become!

I just installed TurboTax Fed Deluxe on a Vista x64 system (it’s Jan 7th, 2010) and didn’t have any problems. In fact, it installed very quickly considering that it claims it needs 500MB (but I do have an SSD drive that greatly speeds things up). TurboTax immediately found 4 updates and asked me if I wanted to update. The updates seemed to have installed just fine. “Uninstall or change a programs” says TurboTax 2009 is using 343MB. It says TurboTax 2008 (from last year and still on my computer) is “only” 162MB, so a BIG increase (but I wonder how accurate are these figures?). In any case, even 1GB of space is not a big requirement nowadays.

I will be working with this to help estimate my 2009 taxes before I pay may Jan 15th estimated tax payment.

NOTE: Deluxe will do a Schedule C just fine, but it may not provide as much help as the Home & Business version. If you have been doing taxes yourself for awhile then you might not need to pay the extra money for the additional help. The same with other editions, TurboTax encourages “overbuying” just to get “extra guidance”, the “audit meter”, and/or “It’s Deductible”. All forms are included with all the editions.

I will update this review as I continue to use the product.

TurboTax, the #1-rated, best-selling tax software includes:

Up to 5 free federal efiles
Unlimited federal tax
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ItsDeductible®
Live Community2
Audit Support Center
Up to 5 free returns for one state

I have used TurboTax Deluxe for many years, the last three on the Mac, and have found it to be excellent–until now. This year I bought it in early December to do year-end tax planning. After installing updates and importing my 2008 return, I first turned to the charitable deductions section, a basic section that any itemizer would use, and started entering my donations. I found the process to be disgracefully buggy. The entered date and type of the donation were not recorded for any donation and every edit button was non-functional. Finally, when I tried to delete entries (since they couldn’t be edited), the delete function didn’t work either, even after “confirming” the deletion when asked.

I contacted Intuit support and was told to view support item #7637, originally posted by Turbotax on 12/7/09 and updated today (12/15/09), which indicates that these bugs, which only affect the Mac version, were known. It mentions all the bugs, except the inability to delete a donation, and says Turbotax plans to post a solution, “currently scheduled for 1/9/2010″. Don’t ask me why this simple problem in a mature software should take more than a month to fix. (And, so much for using TurboTax for Mac for year-end tax planning.) I can’t comment on any other sections of the software, since I stopped using it. I hadn’t planned on being a beta tester.

I hope this terrible quality control, affecting a basic function in previously outstanding tax software (that must be error-free), is not a preview of things to come. Get your act together, Intuit. Don’t ruin a good thing for yourself.

I have personally used TurboTax software since 1996. The TurboTax Deluxe version will support all the forms generally needed to prepare your federal 1040 tax return. E-filing the federal return is free with TurboTax Deluxe and insures the highest accuracy and fastest refund. The purchase price includes a free state return software package which can be downloaded from within TurboTax Deluxe. State tax return can also be e-filed for an additional charge, or printed for you to file by mail.

TurboTax Deluxe does not support the business tax returns for a corporation (Form 1120, 1120S), the partnership return (Form 1065), nor the estate and trust tax return (Form 1041). TurboTax Deluxe will support Schedule C and Schedule SE for experienced taxpayers with a sole proprietorship or the LLC treated as a disregarded entity. Those taxpayers who have never done a Schedule C before may wish to use TurboTax Home and Business for the more robust Schedule C support provided in the guided interview. Taxpayers who need to prepare a corporate return, a partnership tax return, or an estate and trust tax return will need TurboTax Business.

TurboTax Deluxe will also handle Schedule D and Schedule E preparation. Users that are new to Schedule D or Schedule E, or experienced users with more complex stock transactions or rental property issues, will find more detailed assistance in the guided interview with TurboTax Premier.

As good as the guided interview is, you may still have a unique situation that requires additional assistance. TurboTax provides a link to the TurboTax Live Community. If you need to ask how to solve a tax reporting problem, post your question to the Live Community and get quick feedback from a resource pool of thousands of actual TurboTax users on how to resolve your tax question.