H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + State + eFile [Formerly TaxCut] [Download] [OLD VERSION]
![H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + State + eFile [Formerly TaxCut] [Download] [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ktmi4gvbL._SL160_.jpg)
- Ideal for homeowners and investors, H&R Block At Home Deluxe includes everything you need to easily complete your federal and state taxes, plus five free federal e-files
- Customized interview process helps you easily complete your federal and state taxes
- Easily import W-2, 1099, and data from last year’s return; quickly import data from TaxCut, TurboTax, Quicken, and Microsoft Money software
- Automatically double-checks returns for errors; built-in expertise and audit support with guidance
- Guidance for reporting investments, dividends, home sales, and retirement income; H&R Block DeductionPro software to maximize tax savings from donations
Guidance for all your personal tax situations. Federal forms and State forms. Step-by-step interviews guide you through a customized experience relevant to your tax situation. Everything you need to prepare your federal and state taxes in one complete program.H&R Block At Home Deluxe includes everything you need to easily complete your federal and state taxes, plus five free federal e-files. With a new, easy-to-use interface, H&R Block At Home Deluxe searches for hundreds of deductions to get customers the biggest refund. Everything you need to easily complete your federal and state taxes, plus five free federal e-files. Click to enlarge. Guidance for reporting investments, dividends, home sales, and retirement income. Click to enlarge. Ideal for homeowners and investors, the program includes personalized tax guidance and features available only from H&R Block, such as built-in expertise and audit support with guidance, plus an H&R Block enrolled agent to represent customers
List Price: $ 44.99
Price: $ 42.99
Mavis Beacon Typing – 25th Anniversary Edition, Deluxe [Download]
![Mavis Beacon Typing - 25th Anniversary Edition, Deluxe [Download]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51R9WajCwQL._SL160_.jpg)
- 330 Personalized lessons, exercises and tests, Detailed tracking and progress reporting, and New Certificates of Completion
- 12 Entertaining typing games
- Learn to type with bilingual instruction (English & Spanish)
- Choose from new music options or import your own MP3 files and type to your own tunes
- New content types: type jokes, riddles, recipes, song lyrics and more!
Maximize your productivity with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe 25th Anniversary! Improve keyboarding speed and accuracy through detailed assessments, personalized lessons and skill-building games in two weeks guaranteed! Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe offers typists a unique learning experience – complete with an updated user interface, and increased efficiency! ● 330 Lessons, exercises and tests ● 12 Entertaining games ● Bilingual instruction (English & Spanish) ●Typing jokes, riddles, recipes and more! ● Ability to import MP3 files Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe delivers a proven, comprehensive keyboarding instructional system! Learn with the #1 trusted name in typing!
List Price: $ 19.99
Price: $ 19.99
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so far so good,
(Note: This review also shows up in the reviews for the download version. Don’t ask me why Amazon doesn’t show the reviews in both places for what’s really the same product, with just different delivery mechanisms. I bought the box version, if you want to know.)
This part written Dec 9, 2009 (see updated comments below)
This is of course a preliminary review (written Dec 9 based on use in the last few days). At this time one can’t do more than a rough cut estimate of the tax return — the IRS forms aren’t finalized, the state forms aren’t available, and of course the various income reports (W2, 1099, etc.) aren’t out yet.
I don’t have a super complicated tax situation this year: it just requires some things that a good tax program should handle easily. So far this program seems to do just fine. I found it easy to use, and found that imports from Quicken and from TXF files worked without any problems. Schedules A, B, and D worked just fine, and the related screens were easy to use and understand. Excess FICA was calculated correctly, as was the child tax credit. The AMT calculation does of course remain weirdly complicated (once a year I mutter to myself about all politicians in DC), but the program does take care of it with no apparent problems.
I used TaxCut last year — chose it over TurboTax just because of cost, and was quite satisfied. I’m not convinced this year either that you get value for the extra you pay for TT. (Incidentally, note that if you have investment income you probably need to get TT Premium, so the price would be nearly double that of HRB Deluxe.)
A warning I wrote in my review last year seems worth repeating: Don’t expect a tax program to apply tax laws correctly in all circumstances; for anything at all out of the ordinary, make sure you double-check against an IRS guide or another guide like JK Lasser’s. The folks who design and write and test the programs make mistakes, too. And for the same reason, give the calculations a sanity check, don’t just use the program blindly, or you could get tripped up by a software bug that wasn’t caught.
I will update this review in Jan/Feb when I’ve had a chance to do more with it.
Update Jan 29, 2010:
I have now done a first complete pass on my taxes, based on W2s, 1099s, and some projected 1099s. I also have had an opportunity to use TurboTax Deluxe (I got a free copy, legally), so have been able to compare the two products.
I continue to like HRB Deluxe. It’s easy to use, and has been trouble-free. There are a couple of things I particularly like, that might be worth mentioning. (1) They show you when the next update is expected, so you don’t waste your time running the update check until there is something. (2) Entering info from interest paying mutual funds that might have muni income (tax-free for Fed) is simple: HRB gives you a simple way to enter the amount that’s tax-free in your state, and takes care of it without hassle. TT can also deal with this, but I don’t like their way as much (they create a separate 1099 to split the income into two parts).
Interestingly, TTD is also noticeably slower starting up than HRBD. Don’t know why.
The one advantage TT does have over HRB is on coverage of automated downloads: TT can download your 1099 info from a larger set of institutions than can HRB. W2 downloads look the same between the two. This does save some time, and could be sufficient to be a decider for some. Not for me.
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|Good software, no problems with download or install on Vista,
I’m mostly only writing my review to offset the wave of negative comments. I had absolutely no problems with the Amazon software download tool. If you are concerned that you might have a problem with it, just test it out first by downloading a free game or something. Next, someone complained that the amazon downloader tool remains on your system after the download – this is true unfortunately, but its also not a big deal, it shows an icon in the bottom right corner of your screen, and you can simply right click it, and close it, it will then ask you if you want to load it when windows starts, just uncheck this, and it will no longer be running on your computer. Finally, some people complained that they didn’t get their product code. I don’t know if this was a bug that was fixed or what, but the downloader software clearly displayed my product code (used for e-filing your return), furthermore, you can get the code at any time via Amazon.com, just click on the “Go to your software library” button.
The H&R Block software loaded fine on Vista with no problems. If you are using user account controls, you should right click the install file and choose “Run as Administrator”. After the software installed, the first thing it did was update itself. Now I must admit it did appear to hang during this update process for some reason showing it was 100% on the download, and I had to click “cancel” but then it installed the update with no problems after that.
The tax software is very nice, most detailed reviews I’ve read comparing various software rank H&R Block (formerly TaxCut) and TurboTax as the two best, and they mostly say they are almost identical but as far as I know, only H&R Block offers audit support. You can import last years files from either software so switching from year to year is not a problem. Every year these programs get better and better, with more features and forms, and simpler interface. I love the simple question and answer format, and the easy free federal e-File. I also like that it includes the state software too. Instead of paying extra to e-File my state return, I just print it out and mail it in (for only the cost of a stamp). This software handles everything I want to do including Schedule D creation, and even schedule F for farm income. Overall its a good value.
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