Discount TurboTax 2001 Premier

I have used Turbo Tax for at least ten years and it gets better every year. Once you start using it, you will never have to enter your personal information again. It reads last year's file and enters all the tedious name, address, SS# and other repetitive data automatically. You have only to verify that it is still correct.

If you have rental property or other depreciating assets, those balances are also brought forward to the next year's return. For a Schedule C business, this is hard to top, carrying forward last year's business info. It also picks up all the previous year's W-2s and 1099s so you only have to fill in the new numbers. One helpful hint - try to have all your income and expense data handy when you start working, it will make the process go more quickly.

Although I never use the data import function from Quicken, I did create categories in Quicken that corrolate to the Schedule C categories on turbo tax. If you are meticulous about categorizing all your transactions in every account you use in Quicken, the import function will work quite well. I cross check a categorized report from Quicken and the enter the totals manually.

There are two approaches to use: the interview, which asks you questions about your sources of income and picks the forms you need, helping you fill them out by answering questions; and the forms method, which lets you just pick the forms you need and fill them out like they were in a typwriter. I prefer the interview method in general, but it is easy to toggle back and forth if you suddenly find a receipt for something you should have entered earlier. There is also a progress checklist that you can refer to to see where you are in the overall process.

One step that you should always do at the end is the error check routine. This will pickup any missing answers, even if they have no calculated value. This helps ensure an error-free return when you go to print or send it. You can file electronically and pay your taxes with a credit card this year.

The tax reference materials are great. You can look up the code and interpretations with court precidents to help guide you with expenses, deductions and the like. There are a few less-common forms missing from the software, but links to download them are available. I had poor luck finding the one I needed at Intuit, but it was, of course at the IRS site.

I can do a 30 page return in several hours, rather than the several days it took me to do it with paper, pencil and calculator in the pre-tax-software era. The faster you get it done, the more time you'll have to cry before you send another check to the government.Get more detail about TurboTax 2001 Premier.