Tax Division survey results on practitioner software uses.

• Author: Prescott, C. Eugene
• Position: AICPA Tax Division

At the Spring 1996 AICPA Tax Division Meeting in Washington, D.C., the Tax Computer Applications Committee surveyed tax practitioners on their use of tax software. Of the approximately 250 participants at the meeting, 88 (about 28%) responded to the survey. Although the attendees were from across the country, no demographic information was collected--in order to keep the survey very short. One of the major factors in the selection of tax preparation software is whether or not the product supports the tax adviser's home state; if a state tax computation is not supported, most practitioners will look elsewhere for their software. As such, these survey results may be biased in favor of software that supports the states closest to Washington (where the meeting was held). Therefore, as with any survey of software, the most this survey can do is to identify a set of potential software products.

Major Findings

[] Finding #1: General reluctance of tax advisers to change software. Respondents were asked if they would use the same software again next year, and overwhelmingly responded that Editor's note: Mr. Prescott chairs the AICPA Tax Division Tax Computer Applications Committee. Dr. Hicks and Mr. Rubenstein are committee members. they would. In fact, 88% reported that they will use the same individual tax preparation software again in the coming year. Interestingly, a smaller percentage (77%) said they would keep the same preparation software for other entities, while 11% (10 respondents) indicated they were uncertain which software they would use for these other entities.

The common reason for not switching is the learning curve needed to be comfortably familiar with a specific package. In fact, one respondent indicated that the major change he would like to see is the addition of more trained staff who could use the software. Another reason for not changing is that the users consider their current software to be the best.

The top five software products used by respondents are ProSystem fx by CCH; Lacerte Tax Software by Lacerte; Go System 2 by Computer Language Resources; TurboTax Pro by Intuit; and A Plus Tax by Arthur Andersen. Again, the reasons why these software products are the most used may be a function of the state returns supported by these firms and the home location of the respondents. See Table 1 on page 633 for complete survey results. It is important to keep in mind that this list is useful to identify the possibilities, not to...