TaxACT prepares, prints, and e-files US
federal and state income taxes. Includes tax planning. TaxACT
provides a free (as in beer) standard (crippled) version which can be
upgraded to the deluxe version (uncrippled) for $20 with state or $14
without. Federal e-file is included with the deluxe version. The most
annoying feature missing from the standard version is the ability to
import last years data. If anything will get you to plunk down the $20,
that will. Other than that, everything is pretty much as advertised.
Old test results
The test results for this version are very old, and as such they may not represent the current state of Wine. Please consider submitting a new test report.
Selected Test Results (selected in 'Test Results' table below)
What works
Federal and Vermont return prep, except for the displaying checkboxes on the form screens. Printout is fine, including the checkboxes. Print preview also verifies the checkboxes work. The help system worked (whether that depended on the various stuff installed through winetricks suggested in another review here I can't say, since I installed that all before running it - except for wininet, which I installed later, and which should not based on my experience be installed - see below).
Not a Wine issue, but the Vermont state module was very rough to work with, with incomplete instructions, and the value it suggests for line "i" on form HI-144 is, according to the Vermont Dept. of Taxes which I double-checked with, wrong. It was also wrong two years ago, which created a tax penalty, on which TaxAct honored their guarantee. However this year when I notified TaxAct there is still an error there, all I got back was attitude. Perhaps their software for other states is better? For Vermont, do not trust them to accurately calculate capital gains on the state's Household Income form.
What does not
E-file does not work for me this year. (It did last.) I tried installing wininet through winetricks after trying to e-file without doing that stalled out (with or without my iptables firewall up, and with or without the ftp connection tracking module installed). With wininet in place TaxAct stalled on startup, then after some minutes went into its screens, but had repeated stalls and never finished filing.
What was not tested
Whatever was outside preparing a fairly standard return which included salary, home business and investment income. Didn't watch any videos.
Additional Comments
Getting it to work again after trying the wininet install involved moving the .wine directory for the user and reinstalling wine, then reinstalling TaxAct federal and state programs.
