Case 1:11-cv-00948-BAH Document 40-12 Filed 08/05/11 Page 1 of 5 Exhibit 114
Tax Software - A Test Drive of Three Brands - NYTimes.com Case 1:11-cv-00948-BAH HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR Document 40-12 Filed 08/05/11 Page 1 of 4 Page 2 of 5 Subscribe: Digital / H o m e Delivery Log In Register Now Help TIMES TOPICS Search All NYTimes.com Business Day Your Taxes WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYLE TRAVEL JOBS REAL ESTATE Search Global DealBook Markets Economy Energy Tasting T h r e e Flavors of T a x Software Media Personal Tech Small Business Log in to see what your friends are sharing on nytimes.com. Privacy Policy What's This? Your Money Log In With Facebook What's Popular Now Q New York Moves My Very Own to Stop Foraging Captain America in City's Parks Tony Cenicola/The New York Times By TIM GRAY Published: February 12, 2011 T A X - P R E P A R A T I O N software usually makes an onerous task easier. It doesn't make doing a tax return fun, but it does make it far less frustrating and time-consuming. Tax-prep programs guide you through SPECIAL SECTION: YOUR TAXES Help on the 1040 and Beyond N e w rules, tax tips, interactive forms and more. Go to Special Section» RECOMMEND TWITTER SIGN N TO EMA L TimesLimited E-Mail PRINT Sign up to receive exclusive products and experiences featuring NYTimes.com's premier advertisers. REPR NTS Privacy Policy the minutiae of the tax law. That's no small feat: reading the Internal ' Sign Up j Revenue Code may seem like trying to decode a cipher written solely for the SHARE benefit of lawyers and lobbyists. If MOST POPULAR - BUSINESS DAY deciding whether to use software is simple, picking among the three 1. Drug A p p C o m e s Free, A d s Included leading programs is tougher. 2. Shortcuts: Options for Self-Publishing Proliferate, For people with straightforward finances a salary and 3. N e w Data S h o w s S h a r p S l o w d o w n in G r o w t h Rate Volkswagen AG some investment income, a mortgage and common 4. Ruling Upholds Gene Patent in Cancer Test H & R Block Inc deductions any of the leading ones should work. All three 5. Carmakers Back Strict N e w Rules for Gas Mileage Add to Portfolio E a s i n g the B a r to E n t r y Intuit Inc Staples Inc W a l - M a r t Stores Inc Go to your Portfolio» TurboTax, H&R Block at Home and TaxAct use a question-and-answer format to guide you through your 6. 7. C o m m o n Sense: Salvation at Chrysler, in the F o r m of 8. Global C o n c e r n Over U.S. D e b t Ceiling D i s a g r e e m e n t return and then plug your responses into the appropriate places on the I.R.S.'s many forms. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/yourtaxes/13review.html Philanthropists Start Requiring M a n a g e m e n t Courses to K e e p Nonprofits Productive Fiat 7/30/2011
Tax Software - A Test Drive of Three Brands - NYTimes.comPage1of4 Case 1:11-cv-00948-BAH Document 40-12 Filed 08/05/11 Each has its advantages. TurboTax offers the best overall experience the easiest and 9. speediest but, with nagging about buying additional software and services, it occasionally annoys. Block at H o m e is just as good at handling the basics and gives an unbeatable guarantee. TaxAct is the cheapest. 10. Page 3 of 5 Page 2 of4 Judge's Ruling in Madoff Case Could Reduce Money for Victims Economic Memo: A Recovery That Repeats Its Painful Precedents Go to Complete List» I ran my family's finances through all three. We're fairly typical two incomes, a mortgage, a few investments, some gifts to churches and charities. Most years, the only complexity to our return is my self-employment income. In 2010, however, we made a big purchase a fuel-efficient Volkswagen that came with tax benefits. TurboTax handled our federal return with ease. One mouse click found the previous year's return on my Mac and loaded the pertinent details into this year's documents. Transferring statements from our investment accounts was nearly as simple. I provided user names and passwords, and the program pulled in the numbers. TurboTax can retrieve data from more than 250,000 employers, banks and investment companies, and Intuit, its maker, continues to add more, said Bob J. Meighan, vice president of TurboTax at Intuit. Summer's treasure: Tomatoes ALSO IN HEALTH» The nagging began when I recorded my self-employment income. TurboTax urged me to upgrade to the next level of software for an additional $10. Doing that, it said, would How exercise can keep the brain fit Can air-conditioning cause colds? HEALTH ensure that I received all of the deductions that I deserved. I passed. Soon, it asked again. W h e n I checked over the return, it asked again. It keeps asking. ADVERTISEMENTS Jennifer L. Blouin, an accounting professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said that the most confusing pitch embedded in TurboTax is the one that Imagine how stylish your farm can be NYTimes.com/Home pops up once you finish the federal section: "It says, 'Would you like a professional preparer to look over your return?' For a fee of $39.95, of course. Didn't I buy the software so I don't have to worry about that? Doesn't this suggest that TurboTax doesn't believe that I should be doing my own return?" If you don't want to pay extra, the program offers gratis guidance via pop-up boxes and links. Users can also pose questions online through TurboTax's Live Community. Intuit staff members and TurboTax users provide the answers. It's like a Facebook page for tax nerds and a test of one's belief in the wisdom of crowds. Would you take the home-office deduction because "Volvogirl" or "Texas Roger" explained it online? Jeff Stevenson, manager of Live Community, said that the service provides guidance, not Ads by Google what's his? File Past Year Tax 2009 Do Your 2010, 2009, 2008 Tax Online advice. The staff members and users "take the tax law and put it in understandable terms," Easy, Fast, Secure & Free To Try! he said. "They don't say, 'Yes, you can take that deduction.' " www.pastyeartax.com/irs Income Tax Block at Home worked just as well as TurboTax in most cases. Most of its explanations were just as clear, and its interview process was just as efficient. If you have your paperwork ready and you're a filer with common deductions, you can probably complete your return using either brand in less than two hours. Block wasn't able to pull in as much of our financial information as TurboTax did. It failed to grab statements from our investment accounts. In theory, the program has that ability, and Block has links with the bigger companies. But when I provided user names and passwords, the program told me that our statements weren't available. Yet I had retrieved them with TurboTax. T H E V W purchase proved vexing, too. TurboTax had provided details on the clean-car tax credit. Block at Home sent me to the I.R.S. W e b site and told me to search for "hybrid." That didn't work because the car isn't a hybrid; it's a clean diesel. A few minutes of clicking and cursing led me to the right place: the I.R.S. guidelines for "advanced lean-burn vehicles." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/yourtaxes/13review.html 7/30/2011
Tax Software - A Test Drive of Three Brands - NYTimes.com Case 1:11-cv-00948-BAH Document 40-12 Filed 08/05/11 Page 4 of 5 Page 3 of4 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/yourtaxes/13review.html 7/30/2011 When it's time to file, Block does offer up a reminder of a difference between it and TurboTax: Block users are entitled to in-person audit support. A Block enrolled agent will advise you if you're audited and accompany you if you have to appear at the I.R.S. It's as if Block is kicking in an insurance policy at no extra charge. TaxAct is the Wal-Mart of tax software; its virtue is price. Prices for all three brands can vary, depending on where and when you buy. But in general, the online versions, where you prepare your return via a Web browser, are cheaper than the CD and downloadable ones, which you copy onto your computer. But the CD's and downloadables allow completion of multiple returns. For this review, I bought CDs of the premium-level version of each of the three tax-prep programs at Staples. At $34.99 in the store, TaxAct Premier Federal + State was less than half the price of TurboTax Premier, which cost $79.99. H&R Block at Home Premium was $59.99. TaxAct even offers a free federal return online to anyone, regardless of income or age. People who use TaxAct's free service shouldn't expect the same level of guidance that they'd get from the company's paid offerings. For that, they have to upgrade, with the cost rising with the level of guidance. TaxAct's maker, 2nd Story Software, doesn't provide downloadable programs for Macs, so in doing our taxes, I had to move our previous year's return to my wife's PC. Once I switched computers, TaxAct could retrieve the old information, though not as completely as TurboTax and Block had. Similarly, I couldn't import information from our investment accounts. But don't discount the quality of TaxAct's offerings. Late last year, they received a highprofile endorsement. H&R Block offered in October to buy 2SS Holdings, the parent of 2nd Story Software, for $287.5 million in cash. Regulators are still reviewing the proposed deal. In announcing it, the companies said that they planned to maintain both product lines. A version of this article appeared in print on February 13, 2011, on page BU11 of the New York edition. SIGN N TO E- MA L PRINT REPRINTS Get 50% Off The New York Times & Free All Digital Access. Ads by Google what's this? Federal Tax ID-EIN number Federal Tax ID quick and easy Have your EIN within a few minutes! IRS-EIN-Application.com Get Free E-mail Alerts on These Topics Taxation Software
Tax Software - A Test Drive of Three Brands - NYTimes.com Page 1 of 4 Case 1:11-cv-00948-BAH Document 40-12 Filed 08/05/11 Page 5 of 5 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/yourtaxes/13review.html 7/30/2011 H&R Block Inc Intuit Inc INSIDE NYriMES.COM N.Y. / REGION» SPORTS» OPINION» STYLE» OPINION» STYLE» Yogi Guardians, on a Healing Mission No Little League World Series for Ugandan Team Op-Ed: Why We Still Need Nuclear Proceeding with a nuclear plant in Alabama is our best choice for producing large amounts of reliable electricity. A Paper Calendar? It's 2011 Op-Art: Saturday Flea Markets and Tag Sales The A-List? They Must Be Grading on a Curve Home World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Autos Back to Top 2011 The New York Times Company Privacy Your Ad Choices Terms of Service Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Advertise Site Map