Happy returns - Intuit's TurboTax for Business tax preparation software - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, March, 1997 by Joel T. Patz

TurboTax for Business

RATING: ****

WIN/MAC

You've finished your personal income tax and now comes the fun part--preparing your small-business income taxes. lfyou run a sole proprietorship, partnership, subchapter S, or corporation, you're going to love TurboTax for Business. Choose a business type during installation, and you're on the way to the easiest tax season ever. (If you choose the wrong business type,just reinstall the program.)

Though sole proprietorships use standard tax forms along with Schedule C, the "regular 1040" version found on this CD-ROM differs from the personal TurboTax version Intuit sells: It provides extra help for such touchy subjects as depreciation. The program also offers special online help, including J.K. Lasser's Deductions for Small Business and official IRS publications.

Like Intuit's personal TurboTax edition. you can complete your company's tax forms either by filling in numbers on the firms themselves or by using the EasyStep method, a series of interview-style questions that help you fill in all the right forms. With EasyStep, TurboTax for Business displays a question in the top of the screen (with room for your answers where appropriate) with keywords underlined. Click on a term and TurboTax displays a definition. The bottom half of the EasyStep screen lets yet! choose between Where Am I to navigate among the topics in EasyStep and to see where you are in the process) and View Cutteny Form, to see the form filled in with your responses. In fact. this year's program lets you enter tax data directly into the current form or via the text boxes next to the interview questions. The program wisely steps around questions you don't need to answer (if you don't maintain inventory, for example, that section is skipped).

The application tailors its questions to your form of business. In the subchapter S version we tested, we had to answer questions about how to split K-1 rounding-error distributions,just one example of how TurboTax pays attention to detail and helps yet! to file accurate returns.

You can take your time working with TurboTax--quit anywhere and you'll return to the same spot automatically. As in the personal edition, you're able to import last year's return. If you use QuickBooks or QuickBooks Pro from Intuit, you can also import your 1996 end-of-year trial balance, a terrific time-saver and a step that ensures accuracy.

TurboTax audits your return for missing or conflicting data (it noted that our ownership percentage didn't add up to 100 percent). The program offers tax-saving tips and helpful warnings about values that might trigger an unwanted IRS audit. Its Deduction Finder examines your return and suggests possible deductions you may have overlooked.

From printing a return and K-1 forms for company shareholders to finding errors and omissions, nothing beats TurboTax for Business for taking the bite out of business tax preparation.

__Joel Patz

TurboTax for Business

Publisher: Intuit, 800-446-8848, www.intuit.com

List Price: $69.95

Requirements: Windows 3.1 or higher or Macintosh System 7.x, 4MB of RAM, 22MB of hard-disk space, CD-ROM drive