Nothing changes too much from year-to-year in the world of tax preparation software, so we’re shaking it up a little this year, reviewing the online versions of two of the major vendors: UFile and Intuit’s TurboTax.
Many software companies these days are clamouring to get onto the cloud computing bandwagon and throw “to the cloud!” onto their offerings, whether it makes sense or not. There’s no sign of the word cloud from either company though; perhaps they figure people won’t warm to the idea of their personal financial information residing in the cloud. I had a little trepidation myself, but soldiered on in the name of science, comforted that my identity isn’t really worth stealing anyway.
UFile Online
Visiting their web site allows you to set up a user account and begin preparing your taxes. No payment is required until you’re satisfied with the result and ready to file. Pricing is $15.95 for a single return; adding a spouse costs $9.00 and all dependants are free. You can save your progress, and log back in later to finish.
The interface and process is very similar to the boxed version we’ve reviewed in past years, and is also a little text-heavy. There’s the option to import last year’s forms, which I couldn’t test, not having them handy, so I had to re-enter my personal data.
An interview format is employed, same as the boxed version, with broad questions to narrow the scope. The question mark symbols with more information on each item were nice, but not always helpful. For example, on “Show the marginal tax calculation?” the explanatory advice was “Answer YES to produce the Marginal Tax rate calculation form in the tax return.” Could have used a little more detail.
One quirk was making me review each set of data entered again before leaving a section; helpful to catch mistakes, but also a bit annoying. It also wasn’t super-obvious where to click to get my results after completing the interview.
TurboTax Online
Again, this had strong similarities to its boxed cousin, with a cleaner and more graphical user interface than UFile, including a dynamically updating balance window. Like UFile, registration is free with no payment until you go to file and the ability to save your progress and finish later. Turbotax Standard is $17.99 per return.
Like UFile, I had the option to import last year’s file but began from scratch instead. TurboTax also used an interview format but with broader, and therefore fewer, questions than UFile. There were also fewer questions per page which made for cleaner pages but, at the same time, more clicks.
Help and advice is more prominent with contextual articles down the right column, and live chat assistance is available as well.
I liked that I wasn’t repeating screens like I was in UFile, but I was annoyed by the constant attempts to up-sell me to other Intuit programs and I thought UFile’s T4 data entry flow was more intuitive. Another annoyance was being asked to enter my name and address information when checking-out; couldn’t they pre-populate that with what I’d entered earlier?
Conclusions
Tax software is tax software. The interfaces may vary, but both programs do the job and do it well. All things being equal, I like the TurboTax interface better, but one thing isn’t equal: price. With UFile coming in cheaper than TurboTax, particularly if you’re filing for a spouse, it gets my nod.
Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter: @JeffJedrasCDN.