Professional tax software reviews 2012 verification#

Accuracy (10 points) - How good a job does the program do at calculating your taxes and helping you legally pay the least amount? For those who think that NetFile certification means the programs will all come up with the same answer (as I believed myself before starting to look at all these packages a few years ago), it is time to recognize the reality.Responsiveness (5 points) - How fast is the online application at saving data and refreshing the screen? slow = frustration! Some of the programs are a lot more reliably responsive, an important factor if you are in the final throes of meeting the April 30 th deadline.Failure to send in a T1135 can be very painful. Does the program tell you, ideally at the point when you have to tick that box, that it is not required for foreign holdings within registered accounts like RRSPs? Some do not say so and others do not say that the T1135, if required, cannot be done online and that it must be submitted by mail on paper.

Professional tax software reviews 2012 verification#

Help (10 points) - How much access to explanations about tax rules is provided and how well placed is it? One of my on-going pet peeve test items is the infamous T1135 Foreign Income Verification Statement which a taxpayer with foreign property over $100,000 in cost must fill in, sign and send in to CRA.Flow, readability and layout (10 points) - How does the appearance and the flow of the program guide the taxpayer through all the steps, ensuring that everything is entered correctly in the right places? Is it easy to go back and forth, to review results and check one's work or make changes? The programs vary enormously on this factor, from simple on-screen versions of the paper forms, which merely do the arithmetic correctly and transfer amounts (or are supposed to!) between forms, to sophisticated interview processes akin to interaction with an accountant, asking questions to uncover all income and deductions and credits.CRA does not do anything, as they woefully admit in the disclaimer on the webpage with the list of packages, to check up on the companies and how they handle our data, which I think is shocking and unacceptable, given that a lot of people likely believe that NetFile certification somehow gives assurance of security protection. Only one company ( Acetax) actually claims to have been audited by an external party. Privacy and security (10 points) - How well does the online tax prep company protect your data and your privacy? What do they promise and what evidence is there of their capability to deliver? As I said last year, it is unfortunately still the case that this is the most uncertain area of the ratings - my numbers could be fairly wide of the mark - since it is hard to get much tangible proof of the reality vs the promises made, even compared to the minimal promises as are publicly made on the websites.Ratings Method: total score out of 45 max points on 5 factors Some packages are better, some just the same as last year, one is sadly worse and there's one new entrant. The same ratings method has been used but the results are a bit different.

As before, I've gone through all the packages certified by the Canada Revenue Agency for electronic submission of a return through NETFILE.

Tax time again! For the 6 th year running, these are my ratings and assessments of the best and the worst of the online tax preparation programs available to Canadian taxpayers for 2011 tax returns.