Doing taxes online

I was reading an article in the New York Times this morning about tax software online. A very nice article that listed the URL of the IRS page on E-filing. I decided to do my taxes. I chose turbo tax, be sure to see if you qualify for their free tax offering. I had been looking for a new tax software because I just wasn't satisfied with the other major brand that I had been using. Email me if you want to know what that was.

I loved it. It was easy it wasn't alot of fun but it was way better than doing it by hand and better than loading the software. This was the first year I tried turbo tax and I am abosolutely going to use them again next year. The efiling process was pretty much seamless. It allowed me to print off a copy of both my state and federal returns and save a copy as a pdf file. Everything went very smoothly it asked the right questions. In all it took me maybe 4 hours to finish my taxes. That includes printing which took a long time so my session at turbo tax timed out and I had to go back to the home page and log in again. I had read the FAQ and been warned about that so it was expected.

Things to remember before you start.

Get your papers together. I had most everything but had to make a few trips to the filing cabinet and the car, it's kinda chilly outside in Maine, in the middle of it all.

Read the documentation. This is a stylin ap but it's on the web so things can happen and it needs to be secure. The FAQ's will tell you what to expect when to expect it and what to do if it happens. They are well written and worth the time to read.

The Ratings out of five

User Interface      4.2  Really nice, very usable. When I had questions help was available and often my question was answered by clicking on a link off to the right.

Ease of use     4.2 It did what I wanted when I expected it to do it. It was amazing.

Overall      4.2 I didn't have to load software. I have a broadband connection. I am most satisfied. It caught a few mistakes I made and allowed me to correct them. Come back in a few days to find out if the IRS accepts my form or if I have to do this over again. I think they will.

So you might ask if I'm so happy with this experience why aren't I giving it a five. Well there was no food and nobody bought me beer I didn't meet anybody particularly interesting. But hey, it cracked the 4.0 ceiling without food, beer, or interesting party goers and that's pretty hard to do.