bruces@Stardent.COM (Bruce Schurmann @stapollo) (03/01/90)
This is a quick review of the three currently available
Tax Preparation programs on SIMTEL20. The three I am referring
to are:
12/18/89 159529 binary PD:<MSDOS2.TAXES>AMTAX89.ARC
01/25/90 167540 binary PD:<MSDOS2.TAXES>PCTX8913.ARC
01/08/90 191663 binary PD:<MSDOS2.TAXES>STAX89.ARC
Summary
-------
What all three programs have in common:
1. All three are tax PREPARATION programs. They
solely facilitate the task of capturing your
1989 Federal Income Tax information, computing
entries where appropriate and printing the
information out. They do NOT offer advice nor
do they work in a questionare style.
2. All three are "shareware" and require a
registration fee for first time use.
AM-TAX $20
Share-TAX/1040 $ 5
PC-TAX89 $25
3. AM-TAX and Share-TAX/1040 offer more
sophisticated versions of their programs (more
schedules, more forms, etc.)
4. All three offer average to good documentation.
5. All three can supposedly generate IRS acceptable
forms on dot matrix printers (excluding the 1040
form itself which none can do).
6. All three installed and ran pretty much hassle
free.
My ranking of the three on a scale of 1 to 10 where
10 is good:
AM-TAX 9
Share-TAX/1040 8
PC-TAX89 4
AM-TAX
------
I like this package and will use it for my own return. It has
several nice features that set it apart from the others:
1. It has a decent user interface with respect to the
way the forms handling is done.
2. It allows the user to invoke "worksheets" at ANY
arbitrary point in the form. e.g. If you want
to itemized contributions for your own records you
can do so and the worksheet sum automatically
updates the main form. These support forms are
indexed to the line of the main form and printed
with the full set of forms.
3. A full featured calculator is always available
that can optionally return it's answer (rounded
off to cents or dollars) to the point in the form
from where it was invoked.
4. Handles multiple forms, e.g. try1, try2, etc.,
very well. You can annotate the index with
comments and see these when choosing forms.
Share-TAX/1040
--------------
This is very close to AM-TAX. It only significantly differs
by not supporting arbitrary user-defined "worksheets" and not
having a builtin calculator. It had one annoying drawback
which is a little more subtle - when a field is filled in and
it is obvious that you want to move to the next field the
cursor merely dangles off the edge of the field. Example:
When you fill in the social security number field in AM-TAX you
are immediately positioned to the next available field once you
enter the last number of the SS number. In Share-TAX/1040 you
have to hit enter to get to the next field. This is a minor
point but the AM-TAX user interface in general was much more
comfortable and intuitive for me.
PC-TAX89
--------
I did not like this at all. It involves the use of "transfer
files" to move data from form to form. Maybe all three tax
packages do but PC-TAX89 makes these visible to the user and
they are very confusing. Maybe people like that sort of thing
but it adds ABSOLUTELY NO additional capability over the other
two packages. An even more annoying attribute of PC-TAX89 is
that it is a carryover from a 1983 tax preparation program and
that shows. Where the other two programs use forms on the
screen in the usual sense, PC-TAX89 presents the forms a line
at a time to the user so you constantly have 90% of the screen
blanked. This is very frustrating and turned me off immediately.
----------------------------------------------------------------
These are my views alone and I hope I have been
accurate. I have no affiliation with anybody
associated with any of the above products.
Bruce Schurmannpipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins) (03/03/90)
Question: Can these tax programs save you any money on the bottom line? Do they arrange the numbers in such a manner as to attempt some optimization with respect to the wallet? Or do they just help you fill out the form? If all they do is help you fill out the form, then what good is it? I'd rather just try to figure out the form than to try to figure out the form AND and new program.
john@itivax.iti.org (John Sauter) (03/04/90)
In article <1990Feb28.195544.670@Stardent.COM> bruces@moon.UUCP (Bruce Schurmann @stapollo) writes: > My ranking of the three on a scale of 1 to 10 where > 10 is good: > > AM-TAX 9 > Share-TAX/1040 8 > PC-TAX89 4 First thanks for the review, I had started doing the same (but obviously am running out of time for this tax year). I have only tried STAX89.ARC but quickly found that I was unable to use it to complete even my 1040. STAX89 is limited in the forms it supports by I hoped I could at least fill out a 1040. Unforunately it does not allow you to make an entry for line 22 (Other income). Since I have other income (as I suspect many people do) I am not able to complete my 1040. There may be a work around, but I'm probably going to check out AM-TAX first. John Sauter Internet (it's very simple): john@iti.org Industrial Technology Institute