TurboTax 2008 Deluxe Tax Preparation Software Review

This review has been updated below. 

It seems strange to remember that there was a time years ago when filing my Federal income tax with the 1040EZ form took only about ten minutes.  Things got a tad more complicated when I bought a home and began to itemize deductions.  Everything began to slide downhill when I retired and suddenly had to report income pensions, dividends and interest payments from several different sources.  I'm not complaining about having retirement income, of course, but it did complicate the tax-reporting process to the point where I actually overpaid some taxes.  A couple experiences with H. R. Block years ago had not inspired a lot of confidence but clearly I wasn't doing so well by myself either. 

ENTER, TURBOTAX

It was with some misgivings that I gave TurboTax tax preparation software a try.  The first time I used it seemed to be a lengthy process because the program asked for great detail.  No longer could I just run up a tape of my charitable donations and add in the total -- No, Turbotax expected me to list each organization and its address, plus the amount of my annual gift for each one.  (Each year that I have used this software, it has given me an option to tranfer information from the previous year into the current return and editing amounts, which has simplified the process greatly.) 

All this detailed effort began paying off immediately -- the very first year I was able to save hundreds of dollars.  I still had to pay something at the end of the tax year but Turbotax made it easy to do that and also set up estimated tax vouchers for me to use on a quarterly basis during the next year.  

MY VIEWPOINT: 

This year, Intuit took their signature tax software to a whole new place with TurboTax 2008 Deluxe Tax Preparation Software which not only makes it possible to file Federal and State taxes but also gave me the option of deducting the cost of the software and also filing electronically at no charge for the refund which (Hallelujah!) finally was due me this year.  I filed on February 5th and have already received the notice that the Federal Government has received my e-return and will be posting my refund to my checking account on February 20th.  (Knock on e-wood!)  When I get my refund, I will return to this review and update it with a confirmation that this actually happened when they said it would. 

In conclusion, I have got to say that I would recommend TurboTax 2008 Deluxe Tax Preparation Software to anyone else whose 1040EZ days are a thing of the past.

There's good news today!

This is February 13th, only eight days after I filed my TurboTax 2008 Deluxe Tax Preparation Software return and my tax refund was safe and secure in my checking account this morning!  Definitely, I recommend this product to most taxpayers.