2013 turbotax return software#
2013 turbotax return download#

2013 turbotax return download#

The download took only a few seconds, as did the import of information from our 2011 return. I downloaded the desktop version of TurboTax Premier for $89.99 - though I learned later that I could have paid $10 less if I’d bought it on CD at my local Staples. If you end up cursing come tax time, the target will be the I.R.S., not your software. Its desktop and online programs make doing taxes as simple as such a time-eating task can be. TurboTax’s maker, Intuit, has its roots in technology, not taxes, and its facility with bits and bytes shows in its wares. A look at each provider’s offerings shows where it excelled and stumbled in preparing my family’s 2012 return. H&R Block promises the most reassuring help - its staff will represent you at no extra charge if you’re audited. TurboTax is the easiest to use, importing lots of financial information with just a few clicks. What you lose in convenience, you gain in control.Įach of the tax preparation programs, whether desktop or online, has strengths and shortcomings. That lets you check entries as you make them, as my wife, a C.P.A., insists upon. And you can more easily jump back and forth between the tax return and the interviews the programs use to gather information. Desktop programs may be costlier and, in some ways, clunkier - you must buy them on CD or download them - but they also offer more flexibility.Ī single purchase, for example, lets you prepare and file multiple returns, as you might want to do if you’re part of a same-sex couple or if you help family members or friends with their taxes. For a decade, I’ve completed our return on my Mac desktop, and I prefer that.

2013 turbotax return software#

They offer the convenience of working on a return from any Internet-connected computer and having that return stored on the software makers’ secure servers.Īfter spending several days running my family’s tax information through Web and desktop offerings, I learned that I’m old-school. Web-based programs - techies call this cloud computing - reside on remote servers that customers access via their browsers. The makers of the better-known tax prep programs - TurboTax, H&R Block at Home and TaxAct - say that many customers, particularly younger ones, prefer Web-based programs to old-fashioned, desktop versions.