Novice-Friendly:  

Whether you’ve filed your own taxes your entire life or this is your first time, TaxACT will help you through the process. Not only is the interview process simple and straightforward, but there are links to help and explanations on every screen if you get stuck on a question. There is an IRS Form Instructions button, which displays W-2 form help, if you’re filling out your W-2, 1099 help if you’re filling out your 1099, and so on. You’ll also see a Tax Tutor Guidance link that will open an index of basic tax information to help you with your tax preparation. To top it off, there is a searchable Help Center where you can find support by keyword.

Like most online tax products, TaxACT Ultimate Online has done away with manual form entry offering a streamlined interview process that’s so simple to follow, you’ll almost forget that this is a tax-related service. The state program is even easier to use than the federal; all of the federal information is automatically transferred.

We were impressed with the multimedia video that you can watch at the first of each section. The gentleman and lady do a great job relaying some basic information and making the product more personable.

Ease of Sign-up:  

You can start your return without a username and password. You will prompted during your return to complete this step and we’d recommend doing so as to save your return. Creating your TaxACT account is a cinch: Create your user name, choose your password, pick a secret question and answer combination, and give them your email address—you’re done! There’s even a password strength meter, so you can create the strongest password possible for improved security.

Feature Set:  

This service supports federal and 43 state electronic filings. Federal and State preparation and E-filing is a mere $16.95, and you can print and mail as many copies as you want. Investors can import capital gains transactions from GainsKeeper© and it has a handy "Life Events" feature. This feature can determine the future tax impact of life events such as marriage, adding children to your family, income adjustments, divorce and more.

The Ultimate Package includes most of the commonly used IRS tax forms and they guarantee their calculations. If fact, they will pay your penalties and interest if the software makes a calculation error. The state filing is available for every income-taxing state and can be filed electronically in 43 states. It can be printed through Adobe Acrobat Reader and they offer part-year and non-resident forms for 32 states. Once your federal 1040 is completed, the state return only takes a matter of minutes to complete.

Help/Documentation/Search:  

As mentioned previously, the help system is more than adequate and includes all the necessary IRS Form Instructions, the Tax Tutor Guidance and the help center. These online helps are in addition to tech support through telephone, mail, and email. They also include a useful FAQs section and their search function has been beefed-up from previous versions giving accurate results on the most commonly searched terms.

TaxACT Ultimate Online is an exceptional tax product and well worth the money at $16.95 for Federal and State returns and E-filing. Add the investment advice and the ability to calculate some more complex returns and TaxACT is definitely worth a second look.

TaxACT Ultimate is also available in a software download version for $19.95 and the same version comes on a CD for an additional $5.95. The software includes federal and state filing and all of the convenient features of the online version. The advantage of the software version is you can use the same program each year as long as you update the software. The disadvantages are you have to install the software on your computer, update it yearly, and it costs $5 more than the online version plus shipping fees.