By Hope Katz Gibbs
Special to The Washington Post
April 3, 1998

The IRS estimaTes it will take 10 hours to complete Form 1040 by hand. But as a married taxpayer filing jointly with one dependent, a freelance career and a mortgage, I don't even have a minute to spare. Which tax program is best to speed through this? Although seven companies offered tax programs in 1994, only two are left, Intuit's TurboTax/MacInTax and Block Financial's Kiplinger TaxCut. For most people, the Intuit software is the better pick; it makes doing taxes almost, well, fun.

Start with one of two paths – EasyStep (the program asks you questions and then fills in forms) or Forms (you fill out forms yourself) – or switch between both. The program tries to keep you from getting lost, marking your answers in blue text and flagging missing info in orange. It can import financial data from Intuit's Quicken and offers other handy touches, such as a Tax Advisor that gives tax-cutting tips and a Refund Monitor that continuously updates the bottom line. (As with TaxCut, its deluxe version throws in help videos and extra IRS publications.)

Kiplinger TaxCut, on the other hand, is not so fun or intuitive, although it handles everything competently enough (and, unlike TurboTax, can import data directly from Microsoft Money files). But TaxCut tends to segregate its help from its form-filling parts, forcing you to click back and forth between screens. It also seemed confused by pretax deductions for a 401(k) retirement fund. But if you're more comfortable with tax filing – or if you use Money and don't want to deal with file-translation hassles – TaxCut should suit you fine.

TurboTax Deluxe, Intuit, Win 95/Win 3.1 (MacInTax, Mac), $50 (basic versions, Win 95/Win 3.1/Mac, $35); Kiplinger TaxCut Deluxe, Block Financial, Win 95/Win 3.1/Mac, $40 (basic version, Win 95/Win 3.1, $20)