thats bs, i have done the same thing and my return was within a few dollars and taxact usually gives me the higher return. i use it year after year since at least 2000.

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To late now... I did my taxes with TaxAct, got 2100 for federal and 125 state. I still happy.

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Don't forget to factor in the cost of the software (or service fee if filing online). The IRS site has links to dozens of sites that let you file federal for free. And i found that i could file my state directly on Virginia's Tax Dept site for free. Also, i walked thru TurboTax online (knowing it would be a good reference) to see what kind of rebate to expect, and then got the same results on a site that e-filed for free. All this was with the knowledge that my tax situation is very simple, and i didn't want to pay H&R Block $130 like i did last year - i'm fully capable of filling in blanks.

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The question should be which is most accurate, not which produces the largest refund. That is, unless you feel like being audited at a later date and paying penalties and interest; even if software provider reimburses you it would be troublesome.

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Interesting article but...evidently the author didn't take the time to look at the online support forums for TurboTax and TaxCut. Both are having major software problems this year with downloading and installing required program updates. The TurboTax program is so buggy and their support is so poor that I began to doubt the accuracy of their return. They are advising users to turn off firewalls and disable antivirus checking. I used TaxAct instead and found it to be outstanding.

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i love competition -- TaxCut has a free standard download that hasn't been promoted much -- I was able to import my data from 2005 TurboTax -- here's the link

http://tinyurl.com/cy837

or the whole thing:

http://store.taxcut.com/dr/v2/ec_Main.Entry17c?V1=731345&
;PID=731345&PN=1&SP=10023&SID=33195&CUR=840&
amp;CID=206485&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=
206485

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Ms. Heher's comparison of TaxACT, TaxCut, and TurboTax is deeply flawed. I tested the desktop and online versions of all three software programs using the same exact tax scenario, and I got absolutely no difference in the bottom-line tax refund. Ms. Heher seems to be fiddling with the data entry and forcing bigger refunds. That a software program will "give" you a bigger refund after fiddling around is NOT a reason to by that software. You can fiddle with any software and force a bigger refund. That being said, all three programs are top-notch. All software companies have update problems this year -- because Congress decided to pass a massive tax law in December, well after most tax software was written and ready to be shipped.

William Perez
taxes.about.com

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The problem with comparing software based on the amount of refund it gives you is fatally flawed because you OUGHT to be coming up with a very very similar figure no matter how you do your taxes. Now, if one software's automatic prompts will make you realize you can deduct something that another software's prompts did not lead you to, go plug it back into the other software and check the results.

There are a couple of valid comparisons that I have seen:

1) TurboTax's deduction tracking software will generally give higher market values for noncash donations than TaxCut's DeductionPro because they take comprable value fees from places like eBay while TaxCut takes them from places like thrift stores. Both are valid means of determining a FMV according to the IRS, so if you give a lot of small stuff like clothing away TurboTax's deductions will be better. It's worth noting that both deduction apps are seperate from the main tax programs and you could fill in either apps data with deductions from either deduction tracknig app though the process would be manual.

2) There are several circumstances where the IRS permits various alternative calculation methods for determining tax/deductions/whatever. Pretty much any tax software I have ever used will perform both calculations, compare them and use the more favorible, however it's possible that some software will not or some software will prompt the user for which method to use. In rare circumstances this might make a very large tax difference.

All this being said the other problems with reviews is that the reviewer tends to only approach them with their unique tax needs (generally those of a freelance journalist or a financial professional) -- this does little good for the common customer with their own unique needs.

IMO there is almost no difference in the packages if you are pretty good at trudging through your taxes and know what you can deduct and what you intend to deduct. I have found that TaxCut lets me skip around a lot easier than TurboTax and due to the DRM debacle a few years ago I swore off TurboTax for good. I still believe that even if I were filling in the forms by hand I would still end up with the same figures, so TaxCut gets my money, but I honestly would think about TurboTax for the ease of valuing donations if I had given a lot of noncash items to charity last year, although in my case I only gave large appliances which are a lot easier to valuate.

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