TAX FILING
The annual IRS tango is getting easier - logistically, if not financially or emotionally. Intuit has ported its popular TurboTax program to the Web.
WebTurboTax replicates almost all of its shrink-wrapped cousin's features. Its Smart Interview System gathers all the information you need to file a return, from your name and address to the minutiae of your stock and fund trades. All the while, your total refund (or, egad, debt) is visible, so you can see the bottom-line effect of each deduction you claim. And if you hit a confusing spot - pretty likely, given the subject matter - you can consult FAQs that line every screen.
Rather than downloading software onto your hard drive, you need only create a password-protected account at the site; your data lives on secure Intuit servers. This means you can deal with, say, your salary and freelance income one weekend, save it, and come back weeks later to enter your investing information and medical deductions.
The app also links your federal and state returns - it has forms for each of the 44 states that extract income tax. There is one hitch, however. It can eat up system resources, so you should probably have a Wintel box running at 166 MHz or faster.
While you might still end up doling out dollars to the Man, using WebTurboTax will save you money in at least one way: At $19.95 (including your electronic-filing charges) it's about 10 bucks cheaper than the version that lives in a box. Folks who qualify for the short-form return 1040-EZ can use WebTurboTax, and those who earned $20,000 or less last year file free. Since you don't need to own a computer to use it, WebTurbo Tax also presents an opportunity for the Great Unwired to use the Net at their local library, or wherever else community access is available. Trite Net boosterism? It might be if it weren't true that those who file electronically tend to get their returns sooner.
WebTurboTax: www.webturbotax.com.
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