Over at TurboTax, sales jumped 10% through the end of tax season. The growth all came from online tax software as desktop software sales fell 2%.

H&R Block’s returns rose 2.6 percent, while returns prepared through the Free File Alliance rose 4.7%. Free File provided basic federal tax software at no charge to taxpayers who earned less than $57,000 in 2009.

While tax season has come and come, it’s never too late—or too early—to learn more about online tax software. Head over to www.Tax-Compare.com and check out reviews of popular online tax companies and read through tax resources, such as a handy tax glossary, IRS tax forms, and important tax dates.

The price for TurboTax’s income tax preparation software currently starts at $29.95 for the Deluxe version, which helps new and returning customers determine how much they need to pay in taxes or how big of a refund they can expect to receive. There’s no news on what the new price will be, but the time to order TurboTax to help you with your 2009 tax return is now.

For millions of taxpayers e-filing their tax returns online, turning to online tax software is a great option for those who don’t want to use a tax professional. The advantages of using TurboTax and other online tax services are numerous, including ease of use, low cost and reliability at catching errors and maximizing deductions.  Tax-Compare.com rated TurboTax highly because of its excellent on-screen guidance, easy navigation and maximum refund guarantee.  In addition to TurboTax’s great customer service, customers can also get questions answered via TurboTax’s Twitter account.

Learn more about online tax software and read reviews of popular products at www.Tax-Compare.com.

H&R Block has created a website to help out those in need of answers to simple tax questions, whether you use their tax preparation services or not. They have also released a similar iPhone application that brings their tax answers to your phone.

With the iPhone app and the website, you can easily ask H&R Block tax professionals a tax questions—or browse tax questions asked by others, flip through hundreds of tax terms and their definitions and test your tax knowledge with their interactive quizzes. The tax questions are categorized according to topic: Deductions & Credits, Work, Education, Real Estate, Small Business, Retirement, Product, Investments and Miscellaneous, making it easy to find questions that match your own. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you simply sign in and ask a professional. With each answer no longer than a couple of paragraphs and no sale pitches for H&R Block, the website and the app make hunting down the answers to your tax questions a cinch.

In addition to the Q&A section, the website also includes Tax Tips & Calculations and new blog posts with interesting tidbits on all things taxes.

Now that you have the answers you need to file your taxes, learn more about online tax services by reading tax software reviews at www.Tax-Compare.com.

“Friends Like You” draws on the foundation of social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, by narrowing down the reviews according to who the user is connected to.

“We know product recommendation comes from people users trust, such as friends and family,” says Seth Greenberg, director of media and digital marketing for TurboTax. “We’re taking personal recommendations a step further by using social tools to allow for customers to talk and share.”

“Friends Like You” is centered around Friendlyzer, an online recommendation engine that lets users see reviews from their friends or from people who have similar tax situations. For example, you can choose between several options to find people in similar situations to yours, such as those who are self-employed or have more than one kid, or those who recently sold investments or moved. You can even peruse reviews of TurboTax based on reviewers who had similar tax methods to you, meaning those who used TurboTax last year or those who had a tax professional file their tax returns.

Check out http://www.friendslikeyou.com to find reviews from your friends—or people similar to you—after connecting to your Facebook, Twitter or MySpace accounts.

For more information on TurboTax and other popular online tax companies, visit www.Tax-Compare.com.

Intuit, the makers of online tax software TurboTax, are releasing a new iPhone application for residents of California which will let them file their state and local taxes on their iPhone. SnapTax became available on iTunes at the end of January for $9.99, which includes the state and federal tax filing fees. SnapTax provides you with the ability to file a Federal 1040-EZ and state (California) return and e-file right from your iPhone.

Simply take a picture of your W-2, and the app will cull the important information and then auto-populate the correct fields in SnapTax.  After a few questions, you can view your estimated refund and can preview the 1040EZ to check for any errors. If you are satisfied with it, you can press “file,” and you’re completely done with your taxes for the year.  SnapTax isn’t meant for complex tax situations and is better for simple tax returns.

For those who don’t live in California, TurboTax will consider expanding the iPhone app for other states in the future, depending on the success of SnapTax this year. Also, there is a similar (free!) app called TurboTax TaxCaster, which will provide you with an estimate of how much you should receive from the government this year depending on the answers to a few simple questions.

Interested in other useful smartphone apps for small business owners? Check out our ChooseWhat blog post on the Top 7 iPhone and Smartphone Apps.

According to Intuit, the software company behind Turbo Tax, the online tax provider has offered free file in partnership with the IRS for the past decade. But, with more than 95 million taxpayers in the U.S. eligible for free online tax preparation and e-filing, not many know about this offer.

For 2009 tax returns, the TurboTax Tax Freedom Edition is available to:

•All taxpayers eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
•Active duty military with an adjusted gross income of $57,000 or less.
•All other taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of $31,000 or less.

The IRS and the Free File Alliance have also extended the Free File program for an additional 5 years.

In addition, TurboTax also offers a free file program in select states.

Twenty states have created Free File Programs based upon the federal Free File Alliance model. The following states qualify for the free file program:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia.

For more information on Turbo Tax and to read reviews of other popular online tax software, products check out http://www.Tax-Compare.com.

If you’re a small business owner who wants to save time and money this year, don’t hire an accountant to prepare your tax returns. Use Tax-Compare.com, which now features a short, new, easy-to-fill-out form that calculates the product(s) you should use in a matter of seconds. Also, read the website’s reviews of 2009 tax software and services, and use the features-breakdown grid to see what you get with each service. Also, check the countdown clock to see how many days you’ve got left to file.

Within minutes, you select a tax software service that will save you and your business valuable time and money.

In the immortal words of Foghorn Leghorn, “Some days it don’t pay to get outta bed!” So, use Tax-Compare.com, select the service that’s right for you, and do your tax returns on your laptop from the comfort of your home.

Check it out:

Tax-Compare.com Tax Software Reviews and Resources

Zilker Ventures, LLC
Tax-Compare.com

If you’re upgrading your equipment from equipment that is used and not malfunctioning, then donate your old equipment to a place like Goodwill. You’ll get a tax receipt, which allows you to write off even more. It’s a good thing.

To keep up with consumers who are now thoroughly discriminating value from price, retailers will have to know exactly what consumers are looking to buy this season and shrewdly price items. The “price-as-product-feature” model is going to have to go away, at least for a while. Not many people are thinking that expensive is necessarily better anymore.

They’re going to have to evaluate the crappy coffee they buy every morning from Starbucks. Maybe people will finally realize that $5 really is way, way, too much for unhealthy additives that make the bland coffee taste better and the rather noisy, energy-wasting “barista ambience.”

For resources that can help save your business time and money spent researching products and services, such as internet fax services and hosted pbx services, please visit ChooseWhat.com

For more information on taxes and tax software, please visit Tax-Compare.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Democratic representative Charles Schumer from New York unveiled his $700 million stimulus plan for small business on Tuesday, as a direct response to the credit crisis for small businesses (Newsday). He plans to introduce the plan into the post-Presidential election discussion of a second stimulus package.

The plan would remove restrictions on the Small Business Administration’s ability to provide guaranteed loans to businesses (with good, not bad, credit) that are unable to procure credit from banks. This would entail waiving administrative lending fees and bolstering the SBA’s efforts with increased funding and expanded staff. SBA spokesman Mike Stamler voiced concerns about SBA’s involvement and ability to take on a larger role in lending.

The difficulty for small businesses to get loans hasn’t been exactly clear. While some pundits argue that banks have begun lending to smaller fish after the fall of commercial giants, others say that banks have become increasingly conservative in extending credit to anyone, much less small businesses. Newsday reports that, despite maintaining good credit for 10 years, small business owner Annemarie McMullen only received one quarter of the $40,000 loan she applied for and was forced to finance the majority of her payroll out of her own pocket.

Schumer’s plan aims at reducing the instances of the above scenario by stimulating small business growth rather than stagnation. In the midst of both Obama and McCain calling for relief to small business throughout the election cycle, Schumer’s proposal stands as the first real attempt to stimulate what everyone says affects over 75% of jobs in America–

–Which is why it ought to be strictly scrutinized. The plan may never come to fruition. It may not even be factual (since I haven’t found anyone but Newsday reporting or blogging about it yet). And like every hopeful budget proposal this one begs the question(s). Where is the money coming from? How are we going to maintain strict oversight on expansion of this independent entity? What is the SBA, really?

With regards to the last question, there have been reports that post-9/11, the SBA lent leniently and incorrectly to businesses who were, in fact, not suffering from the World Trade Center disaster. Whatever the reason for the alleged flub, it’s enough to make one skeptical of their proposed role of the organization and to Schumer’s proposal in general.

But at least now the governments really beginning to think about small businesses, right? Kind of. Asking the SBA to help small businesses weather the crisis is like telling cops to catch criminals (it’s part of their job description). “Take care of your own” is what the plan seems to say. But everyone knows that small businesses don’t get bailed out. Although they account for 75% of the job market in the U.S., they don’t get bailed out.

Why aren’t we using our own money to bail ourselves (read: small businesses) out instead of sending to far-removed, corrupted Wall Street? Because it’s never been a question for us to decide. It’s not in our job description. It’s in someone else’s, and we’ve got less than a week to find out who that someone else will be. Let’s hope he encourages the Senate to come up with something better.

To learn more about tax software and tax information for small businesses, please visit Tax-Compare.com

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com
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Democrats, now backed by Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, are calling for a second stimulus package which could cost as much as $300 billion. To clarify, that’s $300 billion on top of the $168 billion stimulus passed last February and the more recent $700 billion economic bailout. I believe we are nearing the point of “enough is enough.”

Even if the stimulus package is consumer-oriented in design, the idea that consumers will get a check and immediately spend it is insane. Let’s give Americans the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re at least aware of the current financial crisis. A reasonable person will get that check and either save the money or use it to pay off existing debt – not go on a shopping spree (unless, of course, you’re Sarah Palin). Christmas might inspire those savers to spend but the likelihood that the Department of the Treasury could get those checks out in time for the holiday shopping season is slim to none.

Dropping gas prices could amount to the equivalent of a $125 billion stimulus (according The Austin American Statesman) yet as individuals are spending less filling their tanks, they’re certainly not taking this opportunity to pick up that new flat screen they’ve been eying. A recent AP-Yahoo News poll shows that one in three Americans fears losing his or her job and half are worried about keeping up with mortgage and credit card payments. I would call that a pretty good indicator that stimulus checks are going straight to the bank and not to the mall.

The truth is, Americans need to accept the fact that the economy won’t turn around until our “years of reckless consumer and government spending are brought under control” (The Dallas Morning News). Another stimulus package will simply make the situation worse.

Shelley Moore
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com
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