The Cheap Thrill
At $16 for a federal and one state form, 2nd Story Software's TaxAct Ultimate is the low-price leader. Its interview section is less customizable than TurboTax's, and the screens sport a distracting advertisement for getting an advance loan on a refund, but we liked the new interface, Q&A search, and program tutorial.
TaxAct's Tax Help was the second best in the group: Each page has relevant Q&As, a link to IRS form instructions, and detailed advice from J.K. Lasser's tax guide.
But like all other services we tested except TurboTax, it made us enter stock share values on a new screen for each transaction, even those involving the same stock.
We encountered interface glitches as well. After starting the interview for the home-office deduction, we decided not to take it, backtracked to the screen asking if we wanted it, and checked No. But the service retained all the data anyway, which we didn't realize until we saw our suspiciously high tax refund. Also, it was too easy to skip major deductions, such as on a home mortgage and state taxes.
However, TaxAct impressed my dad by telling us the dollar amounts we had to exceed before claiming certain miscellaneous deductions; plus, the service determined whether it was more worthwhile for us to file jointly or separately.
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