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- Premier not worth extra costsI bought the TurboTax Premier edition, because I have a lot of stock sales to enter. Premier was suppose to allow me to import my information from my broker to save me the time to input this data. Unfortunately, I was not able to get this feature to work even though my broker offered this TurboTax feature. Otherwise, TurboTax was easy to use. Rating: - Sent it back!This product did not work for me; it did not have enough explanation for my purposes. We had bought a house last years as well as kept the old house. There was nothing in Turbo Tax which explained how to handle this situation. If I wanted to get help I would have been charged a very high fee for consultation with a tax expert. This program did not work like they claim!! Rating: - Good Overall, With A Few Annoying IssuesI am a long time TurboTax user, and Premier this year shows progress from previous years in most areas. Importing W-2 and some investment data is a breeze, although several mutual fund entries had to be made manually. I found that switching between the interview and forms was less than optimum this year: the forms menu was touchy and hard to navigate accurately, and annoyingly, was not complete. One huge oversight is that form 1040-V, which anyone who owes tax needs (although you can technically file without it), is apparently missing in action. It did not print with my return, and when I went to forms it is not even in the list, making a trip to the IRS web site necessary to manually find, print, and fill out the form. Strangely, the corresponding form for my state taxes did print with my return and was accurate. TurboTax also had an issue with my state taxes when it wouldn't accept an entry I made (correctly) from a 1099-R. It insisted a certain number (a state tax ID number) had to be seven digits long, yet the number (which the payer, Fidelity Investments, confirmed) was nine digits long on the 1099-R. TurboTax would not allow me to overwrite the field, and I had to write a cover letter to file along with my state taxes (which necessitated paper filing). The program also lacks a decent search function. I had a complex issue involving a payment taken as stock which I had to research completely on my own (the J. K. Lasser book is still a great tool to have on hand). I also find that for both the 2006 and 2007 tax years TurboTax is inflexible about keeping your files in anything but PDF format, which I consider to be a major inconvenience. Overall I still find TurboTax the best self-preparation tool on the market, but it is not without its frustrations. I recommend the program, but caution that if you have complex returns, TurboTax is not a perfect tool and has some subtle flaws that pester the user. Rating: - Turbo Tax PremierI usually buy the deluxe version of Turbo tax but this year, I decided to buy the premier version because I had more investment sells. I didn't find the premier version much better than the deluxe version so to me, it was a waste of the extra money. Rating: - twice burnedMy accountant died and everyone said I could do my own taxes. Last year, it worked but I couldn't print a copy for my files. This year, the on-line update isn't working and gives me a server error. It is the only thing I can't do on my high speed cable modem, so it must mean their server. They sell and incomplete product and do not support the updates (there is no human support). Next year I'll find a younger accountant.
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