In a season that has had more than its share of problems with tax software, many problems have been fixed. For example, the state of Minnesota now says that its residents to use Intuit tax applications to prepare and file their taxes. And for TaxWorks, whose rewrite of its application for the 2012 tax year had been extremely troubled, the worst appears to be behind it.On the positive side, the Intuit situation is the clearest. Earlier this month, the Minnesota Department of Revenue warned residents not to uses any Intuit products to prepare or file returns, on paper or electronically. There were 13 issues the state listed that affected some or all of the company's tax products, Lacerte, ProSeries, Intuit Tax Online and TurboTax. However, a spokesperson said that on March 19, the Minnesota department told taxpayers that all problems had been fixed and they could safely use Intuit products.
And for TaxWorks, the Facebook page of its parent, RedGear Technologies, has seen a significant drop off in the number of complaints that was accompanied by an increase in posts thanking the company for getting past the hurdles.
H&R Block, which had a glitch that affected about 600,000 returns, involving education credits, is also reporting progress and its CEO Bill Cobb, apologized to users. This week a spokesperson reported that "There is positive progress to report in the processing of our clients' tax returns affected by the Form 8863 processing delay. Based on the recent trends, we believe that in the next 48 hours more than half of the impacted clients will have their refund, or a change in status declaring a refund date."
The worst remaining problems appears to be TRX Software Development, whose troubles have turned into numerous complaints posted on the Better Business Bureau website. Customers of the Murfreesboro, Tenn.-based software company have similar complaints to those that hammered ATX and TaxWorks, but also have more reports of company representatives hanging up on calls and of the refusal of TRX to issue refunds on software purchases. Attempts to reach TRX were unsuccessful. Calls to two of three contacts listed on the company's website resulted in messages that the mailboxes could not accept more messages while a call to a third repeatedly disconnected after several rings.
BBB recently lowered its rating on TRX Software to an F. The organization reported there were 117 complaints filed against TRX over the last three years, 79 of those resolved in the last 12 months. Problems with software or service produced 102 of the gripes. The company failed to respond to two complaints; 16 complaints were not resolved and the company's response time was long, BBB reported One complaint on the BBB site said that although the TRX software had been great the previous five years, this time every return prepared utilizing that package had been rejected by the IRS.
BBB noted it had met with TRX management on March 13 and reported that TRX had provided a statement that "...we still recognize the need to address the underlying issues with our program so that this pattern of complaint can be eliminated in all reasonable circumstances". The response outlined by TRX included hiring additional, professional staff for handling complaints, along with expediting the analysis, diagnosis, evaluation, and resolution of problems; renovating and revising the company's refund policy; retraining and reemphasizing a high standard of customer care with our customer service staff members; and convening weekly intra-corporate, cross departmental meetings of supervisors.
ATX still has its critics and reports of serious problems have continued into the last week. But it also has its fans.
"There have been some glitches, like the dropped ‘complete' checkbox (which was fixed with a downloadable utility), memory issues, and a bad Schedule E update that slowed down all of the returns with Sch. E a lot, but in whole, most of the ‘problems' have been with getting used to the new platform,," says CPA Joan McHugh, who is based in Sacramento, Calif. "For example, I thought prior depreciation was calculating incorrectly with a 50-percent-owned rental, but I hadn't checked the prior year use box - it's on a separate page this year - and when I corrected that, the ‘error' cleared up." She likes the enhancements and believes that many who are complaining have outdated computers.
The software disasters of some vendors have turned into opportunity for others. Many of those who reportedly on the websites that they had switched from TaxWorks or ATX went to Drake. One ATX customer also reported having received a free software license from Intuit for ProSeries.
Intuit confirmed that "We are offering some customers a free ProSeries Pay-Per-Return license (a $225 value)" That includes pay-as-you-go for 1040 and business returns, all forms, schedules and capabilities of the unlimited version and free e-filing. The recipients also get delivery of one CD release along with ongoing online internet updates.
