9212mhm (03/08/83)
I requested information on income tax preparation packages for the Apple about two weeks ago, my thanks to those who responded. So I am now posting a summary of the (few) responses. Jerry Mendelson posted a very nice description of Howardsoft Tax Preparer, with a strong personal recommendation - thanks Jerry. He said that it was very worthwhile (he used it for several years), but that the human interface was a bit tricky. David C. Lazar described his own package he set up on Visicalc last year. Several other answers were about the printer I am about to buy. ******Some of my own comments: The price of the new Howardsoft package is $175 deep discounted this year - approaching the cost of hiring an accountant to do the taxes. I cannot see spending that kind of money on the package. Information on any of the other packages seems to be very hard to come by. One package that has caught my interest - the one by Continental Software. I bought the Home Accountant by them and am *very* impressed - the home budget is ready to go onto the system April 1. I do not know if these days the name of the company has much to do with the quality of individual packages it puts out, but if this one is *half* as good as the Home Accountant, then it will be well worth the $60 for "Tax Advantage." As to the printer, I ended up ordering the Okidata Microline 82a with graphics and the Grappler+ parallel interface card. Seems to be about the best price/performance ratio, although if pressed, I will admit that I almost bought the C. Itoh 8510 instead. Mark H. Mortensen Bell Labs - Holmdel u2a1!9212mhm (new 3B20S machine!)