Teleidoscope

Wed, Mar 28, 2007

Tax Software Solution

Posted at 10:02 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Loading WinE and running TaxACT Deluxe is working well. I have a couple of questions for our company accountants mostly related to our shift from S-Corp to C-Corp in the midle of the year, but otherwise, I'm ready to electronically file. I'm getting a big refund from the Feds and owe the state a little -- not enough to trigger penalties or estimated tax payments for the coming year, so that's all good.

The biggest problem I had with doing my taxes turned out to be finding my last-year's tax documents. I got all organized last spring and put the return hardcopies, w-2s, etc in a folder, which I couldn't find.

And because of TurboTax's obnoxiousness, I did last years taxes on an old Win2K box which I haven't used since (the TurboTax CD was still in the drive). I'm not sure what the password was... it took me an hour and a half of trying dfferent passwords and account ids before I found an admin password that worked. I reset the password of my main account and tried to print out a hardcopy set of the returns... The antique printer which is the only one Win2K has drivers for would not print. (It hasn't been used since last tax season either.) Fortunately, TurboTax had a pdf option, and I was able to use Samba to pull the PDF (and the Turbotax data file, just in case) across to my Linux box.

I have to say, I think I like TaxAct better than the recent versions of TurboTax, which had gotten obsessed with bells and whistles, and asking questions in a fussy order. TaxACT seems more like what I remember TurboTax being like 8 or 9 years ago. When it was good, and helpful, and not annoying.

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