I started off doing taxes by hand with the help of an Excel spreadsheet, moved to TurboTax for a few years and have been using TaxAct for the past 5 or 6 years. Overall TaxAct has worked ok for me, but only because I'm pretty familiar with the process, including the standard forms, and I'm double-checking everything.
Several years ago I had to file an unusual form that TaxAct didn't handle correctly; I would have overpaid by hundreds of dollars if I hadn't caught the problem myself. This year it kept wanting to treat my vehicle tax deduction from the federal form as a foreign tax payment on the state form (Calif). It kept giving a yellow alert until I finally had to zero-out the entry directly on the state form. After I expressed interest in making estimated tax payments for 2010 it kept wanting to help me do that - even after I realized I didn't need to. There was no way to go back and say "No" and have it remember. If I had printed my returns without going into the custom print options I would have gotten many pages of irrelevant forms that I didn't need to file.
TaxAct is inexpensive and does the job if you stay on top of it. If your taxes are at all complex and you're not familiar with IRS forms and instructions - and don't want to take the time to read them - I would recommend trying another program or hiring someone like an enrolled agent to do your taxes for you.Get more detail about TaxACT 2009 Ultimate Bundle for Desktop.
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