I wanted so badly for this product to work
After 15 years of TurboTax and their ever increasing prices, I bought TaxCut this year to see if I could switch. To make sure I was not going to get a different answer, I actually did my taxes using TurboTax and then bought a discounted Taxcut after April 15 to do a comparison. I had tried TaxCut about 6 years ago but found it too difficult and unreliable to work with my situation. But TurboTax cost me 0 to do my 2008 taxes (2 business partnerships in two different states while I am a resident of a third state). For the price of all the TurboTax programs (TurboTax Premium, TurboTax Business, 1 extra Individual State, and 2 business states), I would save about 0 if I could get TaxCut to work. So, I really wanted the program to fit my needs.

So, let's start with the good. Turbo Tax Home and Business is actually two programs in one and the Business program can do all different types of businesses, like Partnership Returns, that requires an addittional purchase with Turbo Tax. What is really nice about TaxCut is that you can do multiple business states with the program at no additional cost. (NOTE: I have not test the state business program yet, but plan on doing so). This is a big savings for me. Additional personal states cost , which is less than the TurboTax charge.

My individual federal tax return worked out fine and what I got with TaxCut was identical to TurboTax. The import of last year's turbo tax program was smooth and since I have been doing my taxes for so long, I knew the categories and could fill in what I need. Filling out the California non-residential seemed straight forward, although slightly more complicated. The answer was also the same, although TaxCut wanted me to do an AMT form for California while TurboTax did not.

Now the bad. For the personal state taxes, TaxCut simply said it does not do Hawaii non-residential. I am not sure why it does not, but it does not. So, how am I suppose to prepare that return? I can try to fill out the forms, but without the data check and the knowledge of the tax laws, that would be a crazy thing to do. SSo, even though I would have to pay for the Hawaii state, I can at least fill out the forms with TurboTax while TaxCut gives me noi option.

Then for the business taxes, TaxCut cannot import the 2007 TurboTax files. It does not tell you that it cannot, but simply does not find the files and there is no help menu. I had to google around to find out why it did not recognize my 2007 Turbo Tax file (the personal tax program had no problems with this but the business program does). That means all the depreciation tables that I have built up over the years will have to be hand transferred. While I was googling, I found out that if I did have a 2007 taxcut file, I would have to have last years version of TaxCut to transfer the data into this year's version.

Although I am very discouraged, I am going to continue to test the Business program to see if it gives me the same results for one of my partnerships. Even just switching the business taxes would save me a lot of money. If it does, I may spend the effort to recreate this year's taxes so that I can still switch next year. But, I am not optimistic about the outcome. So, I cannot recommend this for those who wanted to easily move from TurboTax to TaxCut.

TaxCut found a deduction that T****Tax missed
Decided to try TaxCut this year because:
a. the reviews for the 2008 version of T*****Tax seemed to be rather negative (slow, bloated).
b. after April 1, I couldn't find any significant discounts (versus - in March).
c. T*****Tax didn't do a good job in calculating the max contribution I could make to a Solo 401(k).
d. an Amazon vendor was offering a really great deal on the TaxCut Home & Business package.

Turns out I didn't need the Business part of TaxCut. All the forms I needed as a self-employed filer were on the Home CD. Switching between the interview mode and the actual forms can be a bit awkward. The directions are reasonably clear, but sometimes hard to follow (e.g. when the directions said to click on a command keyword, I couldn't find it in any toolbar menu or tab; eventually I found the keyword link at the _bottom_ of the screen.)

The reward for choosing TaxCut was that the program applied 100% of medical insurance premiums as an Income Adjustment because I'm self-employed. Last year T****Tax treated these premium payments as a medical deduction less the 2% income threshold. I filed amended returns to get refunds due to this newly-discovered Income Adjustment.

TaxCut, just like the other program, seems to be unaware of the real contribution limits for Solo 401(k) plans. You just have to ignore the bogus "error" warnings.

Bottom line: if you're self-employed, then TaxCut does a better job in finding income adjustments and deductions than its competitor.

Not as good as Turbotax
I was thinking of upgrading from Turbotax Deluxe to Turbotax Home & Business. I also buy Tubotax Business every year. I purchased this product because it included all business forms as well as the individual return.

A little background: I am a CPA and I have been preparing a few returns on the side for over 30 years.

While the Federal returns for individual returns as well as the partnership return (the only business return I have had to prepare so far this year) are adequate, the State returns are really lacking. However, they are included as part of the package whereas for Turbotax Business you would have to buy them separtately. So I guess you get what you pay for. For individual returns, it is included for Turbotax Deluxe and higher and it is superior to TaxCut. TaxCut just included the basic return for my state and I had to prepare other schedules manually and input the result. Pain in the butt!

Help from TaxCut: I did online chat to try to resolve a problem with a state partnership return and the guy was trying to answer my question looking at the individual return. Finally he referred to someone else who stated he could not help me cause he did not have the business return on his computer. (The first guy apparently did not even realize he needed the business returns to even know what I was talking about). TaxCut never came out with any updates to the state returns to fix the problem. I had to override fields to make it right.

Bottom line, if you are only going to prepare individual returns, I would not recommend this product. I would pay the extra $ for Turbotax. However, if you need to prepare a handful of business returns, I would consider this. Instead of spending close to 0 for Turobtax H&B and Turbotax Business,[...]. Caveat: you need to know what you are doing because you need to know what the finished product should look like.

Very disappointed
Updated: I got a copy of TurboTax Business to finish my S Corp 1120S return last night. What a difference! It only took about 20 minutes to finish the return after struggling with TaxCut for 2 months! TaxCut personal is ok, but the business is terrible.

Original: This year I have several returns to do (S Corp, Estate, Joint, Kids). I purchased TaxCut home and business because of the fact that it would cost about 2x as much to purchase all the TurboTax programs I needed.

The personal returns have gone fairly well and I'm happy with them. The Estate and business returns are a nightmare. The interviews are worthless. Mostly it says that you should click on 'whole form' and enter the information that is appropriate for your situation. It would be easier to download the forms from the IRS--at least then you would know that you weren't getting any useful guidance. I went through the complete CA state return before discovering that TaxCut didn't transfer the capital gains correctly. Online support said that 'Estate returns are too complicated and they would escalate'. I haven't heard anything back yet. Finally I just overode the entry with the correct number, but I'm afraid there are other things I didn't catch.

Next year I'll pay double for TurboTax.

Never again
I have survived using H&R Block software but I will never use it again. If I had not had TurboTax from last year I could not have navigated it.
Warning! If you want easy, use TurboTax. If you are looking for a headache, this is the one for you!