TaxAct Online Review

If you ever worried about the fact  you do not have a choice when it come to online tax preparation sites worry no more. Very few companies have been providing consistent, quality service at a great prices to the tax paying population as TaxAct.  If  have heard only about the 2 big online tax companies, then you haven’t seen TaxAct!

The totally revamped TaxAct site for 2009 is really outstanding. If you crave simplicity of using a site, this is where you need to start.

TaxAct Usability

Navigation: One of the easiest navigation themes that we have seen - even surpassing Turbotax online and TaxCut online. On the right hand corner is the “Refund Meter” which shows the refund (or money you owe) in real time. Real time means that if you make a change on any part of your tax return the refund is immediately calculated.

Direct access to forms: If you are a bit savvy with tax forms, you will absolutely love the direct access to tax forms. You can directly go to any tax form from the “Forms List” menu in TaxAct. The forms are neatly categorized and displayed in a hierarchy making it easy to find a specific form.

Refund Meter: This one feature beats the trip to any CPA. This is the one key feature we use to distinguish between ordinary tax software and high end software. TaxAct has the refund meter which instantly recalculates your tax refund when you make any change to any data within your tax return.

Tax Calculation Process:

Taxact guides you through a very detailed interview process. The sections are divided into the following :

Basic Info, Life Events, Federal QA, State QA, Review, Filing

Starting with basic questions like your personal information and W2 information. Then it gets into the life changes section - and asks very specific questions about the changes in your life which impacts your tax situation - events like marriage, new born, divorce etc.  The Federal QA and State QA gets into the details of your tax deductions, credits, investment income and capital gains etc.

TaxAct Features:

TaxAct comes in 3 different flavors -  Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate. The standard version has free Federal e-file. The TaxAct Deluxe and TaxAct Ultimate versions come loaded with help, including J.K.Lassers Tax Manual and several proactive deduction maximizing features.

Help And Support

Software Help: JK Lasser has been providing tax help books for a while. In the dark ages when there was no internet and no online filin, JK Lassers books were the ultimate guide. For 2009, TaxAct contains the entire JK Lasser tax help guide available at your fingertips.

Live Help:

TaxAct offers live support 8 am to 9 pm M-F, 8am-5pm Sat, and 12pm-5pm Sun. Knowing that you have an actual person to talk to when you do your taxes online should give you some peace of mind.

TaxAct Pricing:.

TaxAct beats almost everyone else when it comes to online State Tax Filing. So here is great tip.. If you are eligible to Free File at the IRS site, you can complete your Federal filing and then head over to TaxAct to do your State Tax Filing. See prices for Online State Tax Filing at TaxAct.

Federal and State combinations are packaged at very reasonable fees. The TaxAct Standard package is FREE, the TaxAct Deluxe and TaxAct Ultimate package is priced at $10 and $17.  Both these packages are the lowest prices for online tax filing.