Just got done with my taxes. Yes! Being a long-time user of TurboTax, I’m naturally concerned with how it fares each year. I’ve been using the online version ever since it came out, and let me tell you, it’s much, much better than it was in 2006, when I had this to say about it. With that in mind, here’s what I think of it right now.

TurboTax has really improved for the 2007 tax year, but it still needs work. While it’s easy to prepare the federal tax return, and to navigate to specific sections when you need to look things up (which was a big complaint of mine in the past), you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to the error check. The messages given for the errors are almost cryptic, there are no links that explain what those fields are, and more importantly, there’s no way to go directly to those fields on the pages without exiting the error check, which defeats its purpose.

This year, I noticed that random fields were carried over from past years, unseen in the online return as I progressed through it. They showed up when I printed it, but there were nowhere to be found in the online forms.

What’s more, the error check discovered that required fields weren’t filled in when the return was prepared, but those fields simply don’t appear on the online forms, so there’s no way to fill them out until you get to the error check.

The state tax return portion of TurboTax still needs serious work. There is absolutely no guidance (field explanations, help files) when you get there. You’re completely on your own, and that sucks. It makes me wonder why I’m paying for that portion of the program. I’d actually be willing to pay more for it if TurboTax offered me real, tangible help there.

Other than the points I outlined above, I found TurboTax to be helpful and easier to use this year. I also saw that it packs more value through the addition of the two downloadable applications (QuickBooks Simple Start and Audit Support). I plan to give those a try when I get a chance, and if I have anything worthwhile to say about that experience, I’ll write about it here.