TaxACT Deluxe Tablet App (for iPad)

TurboTax Deluxe Online?holds a slight edge over TaxACT Deluxe Online when it comes to desktop tax prep because of its ubiquitous, exceptional help content, so TurboTax took the Editor's Choice there. On tablet's however, it's another story. TaxACT Deluxe Tablet App gets the Editors' Choice for tablet-based tax preparation solutions. It's economical, it's thorough, it's accessible in more ways (Android and iPad?), and, by rewriting the help content and retooling the user interface for tablets, it's become the best all-around mobile solution for personal tax preparation and filing.

Getting Around
TaxACT's user interface is rearranged differently for the tablet version, but it's just as effective. Actually, I prefer it, personally. What is there is arranged very neatly and makes navigation fast and thorough. The navigational tabs that run across the top of the screen in the online browser-based version are now in a vertical pane on the left. Most everything is still there, though there's no data entry box for the Answer Center on the main screen. You can move forward or back to visit different topics by clicking on the main tabs (Basic Info, Life Events, Federal Q&A, etc.) and sub-tabs (like Income, Deductions and Credits).

Once you get into the data entry screens, the app looks and works just like its browser-based counterpart. "Back" and "Continue" buttons move you in reverse or forward. TaxACT walks you through all of the tax-related topics that you need to consider for your situation, asking questions and using standard conventions for your answers: data fields, lists, checkboxes, etc.

When you finish a section, TaxACT summarizes your activity there and lets you go back and revisit topics or enter data in any you somehow missed. As you move through the Q&A, the app takes your answers and places them on the correct lines on the 1040 and its forms and schedules. If you don't have the needed information at hand, you can create a "bookmark" that will remind you later. When you've finished, TaxACT analyzes your return for errors and omissions and lets you correct them right on the same screen. If you pay state income tax, the app automatically imports the data you'll need there. And when you're finally finished, you can print or e-file your return.

Numerous Help Resources
There are three links below the navigational markers in the left vertical pane. "Jump To Forms & Topics" does just what it sounds like: It opens a screen with interactive outlines of forms and schedules, documents received, worksheets and TaxACT topics. These provide a good alternative method for zeroing in on the pages you need.

The Help link is directly below that, and it opens a new set of tabs in the left vertical pane that takes you to TaxACT's eclectic collection of help tools. These are:

? Popular Help Topics: Links to context-sensitive instructions for that topic
? Tax Tutor Guidance: TaxACT's own completely-rewritten-from-the-ground-up help files, which are quite understandable and helpful
? Form Instructions: IRS instructional text
? Tax Glossary: Definitions of common words and phrases
? Video Help Topics: Short educational videos on app help
? IRS Publications: Links to more thorough IRS tutoring

The final link here takes you to the Answer Center. This is where you can search the voluminous help resources within the app. Enter a search work or phrase, and TaxACT provides links to four kinds of help: the best answers, answers that others have found useful, related pages within the app and topical glossary terms. This is great.

A Winning Combination
TaxACT Deluxe Tablet App and its competitors have more similarities than differences. They all use a similar step-by-step, wizard-like interview process to elicit information from you. Help is available in many forms from each, with varying degrees of readability, simplicity and comprehensiveness. The tax topics they cover are roughly comparable. They all offer state versions, analyze your return for problems and help you e-file.

TaxACT Deluxe Tablet App, though, is the clear winner of this year's Editor's Choice for tablet-based apps. It's the most inexpensive. Not only did 2nd Story Software translate the existing browser-based application for mobile use, but they made it better. In doing so, they made their help resources more accessible and effective. It may not download financial data from as many sources as TurboTax, but they've added a convention called the "TaxACT Doc Vault." You can take pictures of receipts, invoices, tax forms etc. through the year and store them in this free app for use when tax prep times rolls around.

Finally, the fact that TaxACT Deluxe Tablet App is the only solution that can be accessed on both the iPad and Android tablets, and, unlike TurboTax for iPad, lets you work on the same return on both your mobile device and your PC-based browser, makes its selection as Editors' Choice a no-brainer. There's no reason to consider any other tablet app for the 2012 tax year.

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