TaxCut Platinum 2002

It seemed like TaxCut Platinum was easier to use this year than ever. Navigating through taxable income, deductions, and penalties is far less tedious than it used to be. With TaxCut Platinum you can easily enter your W-2 information (and depending on your employer, some W-2s can be automatically populated), view educational videos on current tax law, and take an interview to see if you qualify for a specific section. TaxCut Platinum also lets you skip any steps with which you are already familiar, and easily return to any section of the form.

As is standard with most of these programs, you must purchase state tax software separately from the federal program. However, TaxCut Platinum includes rebate coupons for your state program and electronic filing fees. Once you have installed your state program, all the information you have already entered into your federal return will be automatically read by the state program. Once you've finished with both returns you can choose the format in which you want to file them: by mail or electronically. TaxCut Platinum will walk you through either process with printing and mailing instructions and electronic filing guidelines.

New features this year include Retirement Savings Enhancer, 9-Year Tax Preview, Home Office Assistant, and Portfolio Manager. Improvements have been made to the Error Check and Entry Manager features. TaxCut Platinum also includes professional tax advice from H&R Block.

While enjoyable is certainly not the first adjective that comes to mind when preparing your tax return, TaxCut Platinum certainly makes the process more than bearable. --Kendra Hayden

Amazon.com Product Description
TaxCut Platinum 2002 offers all of your favorite features from TaxCut Deluxe, including one free state tax program and one free electronic filing after mail-in rebates. Plus, it's packed with new assistants for capital gains, stock options, and depreciation, to name a few. You also get Portfolio Manager, free Ask A Tax Advisor after mail-in rebate, and an exclusive technical support phone number to receive priority status.

H&R Block financial planners assist you in determining if your investments support your financial goals and if your asset allocation matches your risk tolerance. You can also create what-if scenarios for future savings. Nine-year tax preview shows you all the ways that the tax legislation of 2001 will affect you now and in the future. Home Office Assistant walks you through a series of questions to see if your home office qualifies for tax purposes. Retirement Savings Enhancer provides ways to increase your tax and retirement savings to ensure you get the most out of your 401(k).

Rental Property Assistant helps you maximize your rental property tax savings by providing tax tips and reminding you of overlooked individual rental property expenses. Capital Gains Assistant, powered by GainsKeeper, helps you maximize your tax benefits and minimize your tax liabilities. The new Stock Options Advisor offers a central location to find answers to all your stock options questions, including the consequences of your transactions. Get help and advice regarding all types of options--such as incentive, nonqualified, and even employee stock purchases. Business Expense Assistant helps sole proprietors enter, track, and report business expenses to maximize deductions. It also provides additional tax tips and answers to frequently asked questions.

H&R Block IRA Advisor explains the differences between Roth and traditional IRAs, and determines which account would provide maximum benefit for your tax situation. Once you've chosen which IRA is best for you, you can instantly open one with part or all of your tax refund. Just complete an application to open a traditional or Roth IRA account and include the deduction on this year's tax return.

I bought TaxCut Platinum based upon recommendations to avoid TurboTax due to privacy issues. I have used TurboTax for the past several years. I will be going back to it this year.

While preparing my daughter's very simple return, with itemized deductions, I had a couple of questions during the interview process. Mostly, I was seeking definitions of the terms in the interview questions. The help files didn't even provide detailed explanations of the questions asked in the interview. There was also no help available from any on-disk books except for the IRS's own instructions. TurboTax Deluxe, by contrast, includes Money Magazine's Income Tax Handbook as well as other useful help.

TaxCut Platinum also does not provide for supporting worksheets to enter data. TurboTax, however, allows you to itemize each vehicle's property tax (for example) on a worksheet. Then TurboTax uses the total for the IRS form. The worksheets print for you alone and are not submitted to the IRS. This is a very helpful way to keep itemized records of individual expenditures without writing each one down separately, but it isn't available from TaxCut Platinum.

TaxCut Platinum pretends to show your tax owed or refund amount as you go, but even on my daughter's relatively simple return the amount never changed during the data entry. The program apparently was not thoroughly tested, as the text sometimes was not visible, and no amount of scrolling attempts could make it so.

In spite of the on-line registration issues for TurboTax, I will be ordering a copy of it for my return, which involves numerous deductions, depreciation, employee business expenses, and other items that should not be that complicated. After all, I put up with the on-line registration from Microsoft for Windows XP.

I feel that TurboTax is worth the nuisance and minor intrusion. If you don't want to have Intuit know about your computer, buy TaxCut, but don't expect the sophistication from TaxCut that you get from TurboTax.


Hurray for TaxCut-Platinum!   January 29, 2003
13 out of 17 found this review helpful

Left that ridiculous TurboTax forever -

TAXCUT is easier & all around BETTER!


Unreliable and scary   February 11, 2003
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Being ... off by Intuit's new "protection" system, I decided to try TaxCut this year... Well, now I have a second thought. I ran into so many bugs and inconsistencies in the TaxCut that I am simply scared to submit to the IRS the returns forms generated by it. Examples: 1)It drags a mistake in my address intput from screen to screen even after I corrected it in the address input form. 2) I had to use Google to find the latest update on the H&R' website. 3) It bugged me with request to input the SSN for my "second child" (while I indicated that I have only one). And so on and so forth..
And it still inferior to the TurboTax in terms of functionality and UI convenience. Sometime it seems that this program has been written by the same seasonally hired "tax preparers" who are "working" in the H&R's walk-in offices.