You're welcome to have a try at mine, if you like.
One of the more moving things I've read recently is Robert Caro's description of life in the Texas Hill Country before LBJ brought electricity...the ironing stories alone get me all choked up.
I ahve used WebTurboTax for three years. Last year and the year before it behaved correctly. This year it screwed up big time, populating fields with completely incorrect values and promising me a hughe multi-thousand-dollar refund I am not entitled to, which I only learned by looking through the actual 1040 PDF and noting numbers that seemed severely out of whack.
(For what it's worth, I don't have an especially complicated return --- few deductions, not weird multi-state stuff, nothing like that. In the past I've done it by hand in about an hour, and it looks like I'm forced to return to that.)
Damn, what is it about the financial software market? Everything Intuit makes sucks beyond belief, but no plausible competitor appears to exist.
If I were going to check, what would be the point of using the software, I ask you? If the IRS comes calling, I'll pull out the printouts and we can all go over them together. But I've used it for the past three years and have had no problems, and the numbers I can see look right.
Do you remember that wrestler named Irwin R Shyster (IRS), the tax accountant? His signature move was some kind of flying clothesline off the ropes: the "write-off." After his match with the Undertaker (it's death! versus taxes!) he sort of faded from the scene, I think.
I did my laundry [...] This stuff used to be hard.
Bow down before the power of fabric softener.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 11:20 AM
Well, I was thinking of the time before washing machines, when one (not this one) had to wash clothes by hand.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 11:22 AM
You're welcome to have a try at mine, if you like.
One of the more moving things I've read recently is Robert Caro's description of life in the Texas Hill Country before LBJ brought electricity...the ironing stories alone get me all choked up.
Posted by fontana labs | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 2:53 PM
And did you CHECK the results of TurboTax?
I ahve used WebTurboTax for three years. Last year and the year before it behaved correctly. This year it screwed up big time, populating fields with completely incorrect values and promising me a hughe multi-thousand-dollar refund I am not entitled to, which I only learned by looking through the actual 1040 PDF and noting numbers that seemed severely out of whack.
(For what it's worth, I don't have an especially complicated return --- few deductions, not weird multi-state stuff, nothing like that. In the past I've done it by hand in about an hour, and it looks like I'm forced to return to that.)
Damn, what is it about the financial software market? Everything Intuit makes sucks beyond belief, but no plausible competitor appears to exist.
Posted by Maynard Handley | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 4:37 PM
If I were going to check, what would be the point of using the software, I ask you? If the IRS comes calling, I'll pull out the printouts and we can all go over them together. But I've used it for the past three years and have had no problems, and the numbers I can see look right.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 4:39 PM
Software plus a sanity check should still be faster than doing it all by hand, so performing the check won't remove the utility of the software.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 5:32 PM
Too late guys! I already submitted the forms! You can't make me check! Hahaha! Ha!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-04 5:34 PM
Who's laughing at audit time?
Do you remember that wrestler named Irwin R Shyster (IRS), the tax accountant? His signature move was some kind of flying clothesline off the ropes: the "write-off." After his match with the Undertaker (it's death! versus taxes!) he sort of faded from the scene, I think.
Posted by IRS Labs | Link to this comment | 03-19-04 11:07 PM
Do you just want me to go away so you and baa can have a nice WWF blog all to yourselves?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-19-04 11:51 PM
Everyone has his price, ogged.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03-20-04 10:52 AM