# Mac Tax Software



## Homme Efface (Jul 2, 2003)

Hello all !

Small question for you folks. I have been using QuickTax (Impots Rapides) on the Mac for the last few years. Eventhough it was running in Classic (OS 9), it was doing a good job. But Intuit has decided to discontinue the product. They claim it is because Mac users expressed a preference in doing their tax returns online... yeah sure !

Ayway, do any of you know of other candian tax return softwares available on the Mac ? 

Thanks a lot 

Homme Efface


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## BobbyFett (Jan 12, 2005)

Homme Efface said:


> Mac users expressed a preference in doing their tax returns online... yeah sure !


FWIW, I prefer/ don't mind doing it online.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

Discussed this subject here

http://www.ehmac.ca/showthread.php?t=8169&highlight=quicktax

and here 

http://www.ehmac.ca/showthread.php?t=22786&highlight=quicktax


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## islander (Jan 31, 2001)

Well, despite the negative comment (in that other thread) re TaxTron (earlier GriffTax) I have a different view. I've been using GriffTax successfully for about ten years. 

This year it has become TaxTron-Mac. It is still an exclusively Classic app and has pretty much the same appearance it had years ago. So if you can't stand a slightly retro interface, you might be turned off. Don't be. TaxTron works just as GriffTax did. I've used GriffTax for both paper and (in more recent years) NetFile returns with no problems. And with the demise of that Intuit product it's the ONLY Mac Canadian tax app. It's bilingual too. 

The TaxTron website is--
http://www.taxtron.ca/

There is also a new Yahoo group dedicated to discussing TaxTron--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTron-Mac-Users/


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

*Grifftax has some serious problems*

I've used Quicktax for the Mac for many years and even though it bothered me that Mac users paid more, and simply the fact that Mac users were an afterthought to them, the program worked as advertised. The point, for me, of doing my taxes on the computer is the "what if" calculations, and Quicktax made it easy and fast.

Unfortunately I did my 2003 taxes late, after Quicktax announced there would be no 2004 version and retroactively made the 2003 version unavailable. So I was stuck with Grifftax or one of the online versions.

There was an ehMac thread last spring on the online tax sites, which prompted me to check into them as a solution and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't convinced of their security. Transmitting the data using https didn't bother me, I do online banking, but how they handled your data after they had it stored on their server is what I had questions about. Emails to the different companies didn't really answer those questions for me satisfactorily. Here's the thread from last spring: Tax Time and Macs

So I got Grifftax and paid for it for 2003. Not nearly as polished as Quicktax and the UI was dreadful. I spent at least 2 full hours trying to enter a business expense in one column every way I could think of, until I realized that it just had to be a bug. Trying to override the problem to allow me to enter the figure in one spot caused the program to start randomly crashing and that was after I had rebooted my machine into OS9 to use the program. Lots of restarts, I had forgotten all about this in the world of OSX. I ended up finding a blank place in the same area that I could enter the expense and where I could make a note to whoever was reading the form at Revenue Canada that the stupid program wouldn't allow me to enter the info in the right spot.

The other big problem with Grifftax was printing. For some reason they put in several of the forms to be printed on legal size, even though Revenue Canada specifically requires that the forms be printed on letter size paper. It was impossible to print the whole return at once, because the legal size page had to be printed separately with a different setting in Page Setup to reduce it. After trying for a while to figure out how to get around this boneheaded mistake in the program, I ended up printing out the pages one at a time. There was no guide, as in Quicktax to specify what order the forms had to be in to submit the return or even what forms had to be submitted, so I took a guess based on the previous years return using Quicktax. 

In my whole history of using Macs, I don't think I've ever fought with such a piece of crap software as I did with this. Badly designed, crummy UI, bugs and mistakes. Two thumbs down. Now I really know how Windows users must feel.

I downloaded TaxTron for 2004, but I'm not sure I want to even open it, if it's anything like the horror Grifftax was. I think I'll look again at filing online, to see if I can live with my security concerns. Even though I hate Intuit Canada now for dropping Quicktax for the Mac, if they're going to release an OSX version next year, as the letter hinted, I may just go back with them.

I think that the online tax services, and the fact that filing is free using them for lower income folks, probably devastated the market for programs like Quicktax. And with Mac users being even a smaller share of that market, it probably meant that there was really no economic sense in writing and supporting a Mac version.


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## JGZ1 (Jan 19, 2005)

*Don't look now*

Anyone else find it kind of pathetic that in the Google ads at the top of the thread there are multiple ads for Quicktax?

I, like others, are really annoyed at Intuit. I have used their product for 4 years and was very satisfied (actually I am not sure how others had trouble). I really like the carry forward of information. But they do not want my money anymore. But I also find it annoying that they do not respond to my emails. Actually they do respond with spam - in both languages!!!

Anyway, why not send an email to Chris Wilkinson who is the QuickTax manager that cancelled Quicktax for the Mac?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

JGZ1 said:


> Anyone else find it kind of pathetic that in the Google ads at the top of the thread there are multiple ads for Quicktax?
> 
> I, like others, are really annoyed at Intuit. I have used their product for 4 years and was very satisfied (actually I am not sure how others had trouble). I really like the carry forward of information. But they do not want my money anymore. But I also find it annoying that they do not respond to my emails. Actually they do respond with spam - in both languages!!!
> 
> Anyway, why not send an email to Chris Wilkinson who is the QuickTax manager that cancelled Quicktax for the Mac?


Two questions: How do you happen to know that this person made this decision? Is it public info? Do you have a link?

Was this decision to cancel Quicktax for the Mac made after the following letter, posted by ehMac member CamCanola in another thread, that seemed to be promising an OSX version of Quicktax for the Mac?

CamCanola said:


> Here is the reply I got last April:
> 
> ---
> As a Mac user here in a sea of Windows computers, I feel your pain.
> ...


BTW, I never had a problem with Quicktax, I've used it since '98, I think, or maybe even '97, up until the 2002 version and it always worked as advertised. I think they added too many dumb videos with folksy financial planners giving their advice, but I just ignored those.


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## Willy Z (Oct 25, 2004)

I've never used any software to do my taxes, only the good old fashion, pen, eraser and coffe 

though, I wonder if these programs work with the Quebec way of handling and calculating the taxes ?

for those who don't know...

on a 1$ product, we add 7% for the federal gov, and on the taxed price, 1.07 we add an other 7 % for the quebec gov, which ends up being about 15.5 %.. or 1.155 $.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Willy Z said:


> I wonder if these programs work with the Quebec way of handling and calculating the taxes ?


I've seen mention of the Quebec forms on both Quicktax and Grifftax, so yes, I believe they do. Based on my personal experience I would say, stay far away from Grifftax, though.

I'm sure the online tax sites handle Quebec too.


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## islander (Jan 31, 2001)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Based on my personal experience I would say, stay far away from Grifftax, though.


I disagree based on my some ten years of personal experience using GriffTax. I suggest anyone who has problems/concerns with this app (as with just about any other) contact the developer. I found him very accessible and responsive in the past to my questions. 

And, as I mentioned in my previous post, there is a new Yahoo group where users will be able to discuss TaxTron (the successor to GriffTax). The TaxTron people have said they'll be monitoring that group too. So one can hope that any queries will be dealt with knowledgeably and quickly.


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## RideOn (Apr 10, 2003)

>This year it has become TaxTron-Mac. It is still an exclusively Classic app and has 
>pretty much the same appearance it had years ago. So if you can't stand a slightly 
>retro interface, you might be turned off. Don't be. TaxTron works just as GriffTax did.

Based on islander's reply above about working 'just as GriffTax did', I don't think that I want to even bother opening up TaxTron. It was a nightmare before, wasted hours of my time, far easier/quicker to do manually, wouldn't work to enter some items and couldn't efile. For those who choose to ignore the ****ty interface, the program selection of what it insists on printing, the inclusion of french forms on an english return, won't delete unwanted forms, won't efile if you but in values provided by revenue canada (carry forward of capital gains/loses), won't calculate the pension deduction (and if you enter and amount it won't allow efile),ect. Why bother......... 
Do you want me to tell you how I really feel about it?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

> Do you want me to tell you how I really feel about it?


Yeah, go for it, I love reading a good rant. 

Obviously, "Your Mileage May Vary" as they say. But RideOn's experience sounds exactly like mine. As I said earlier, mine was terrible. I've never in over 10 years of using hundreds of apps in both OS9 and X come across anything that I've had to fight with as much as Grifftax 2003.

It's great that Islander hasn't had a problem with the program and I don't discount his experience. Possibly he's simply more clever than I am, or in his years of experience figured out a way around the program's quirks, such as not being able to enter data in certain fields or not printing forms according to CCRA standards. I consider myself reasonably intelligent and the fact that this program left me completely mystified about how to proceed on many occasions, is something I've always associated with tales I hear from PC using friends of badly written apps on their platform of choice.

As far as contacting the developers to express my concerns, as Islander suggested, after a few hours of frustration my urge was to contact the developers to demand a full refund as well as tell them which orifice they could insert their CD. But since I eventually did manage to torture a printed return out of the program, I won't ask for my money back. I may still contact them to let them know just what I thought of their program, which I think needs far more than a few minor bug fixes, but likely a complete re-write. 

I'll try to refrain from using rude language.


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