2010 tax software survey.

• Author: DeFelice, Alexandra

The Tax Adviser and the Journal of Accountancy conducted a survey of AICPA members who prepared 2009 tax returns for a fee to determine which tax preparation software products were the most popular, what aspects of those products preparers liked, and what they disliked. Of the 17 products identified for the survey, Drake and UltraTax CS, a Thomson Reuters product, were in a virtual tie for first place for the highest overall rating. Drake scored the highest (4.44) on a scale of 1-5, with 5 meaning "very good." That was just a hair above UltraTax CS, which received a rating of 4.43. Intuit's Lacerte product came in a close third, scoring a 4.38, with Thomson's other package, GoSystem Tax RS, receiving the lowest score, 3.39 (for the overall ratings, see Exhibit 1 on p. 537).

Exhibit 1: Overall ratings ATX 1040 Office ATX MAX Drake GoSystem Tax RS Overall rating 4.11 4.29 4.44 3.39 How easy was the 4.41 4.56 4.72 4.14 update/installation process? How easy was it to 4.17 4.37 4.31 3.12 use? How easy was it to 4.13 4.36 4.23 3.07 learn? How well did it run 3.94 4.18 4.70 3.83 on your network? Lacerte ProSeries ProSystem TaxWorks UltraTax fx CS Overall rating 4.38 4.32 4.13 4.13 4.43 How easy was the 4.46 4.63 3.96 4.38 4.46 update/installation process? How easy was it to 4.29 4.36 3.75 4.32 4.18 use? How easy was it to 4.21 4.34 3.55 4.34 4.01 learn? How well did it run 4.38 4.34 4.22 4.14 4.38 on your network? Average rating by each product's users on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being the best. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

These results mirror those in the 2009 survey (see http://tinyurl.com/2009SoftwareSurvey) in which Drake and UltraTax again were in a virtual tie with 4.439 and 4.436, respectively, Lacerte came in third with 4.43, and GoSystem trailed the rest of the field with 3.55. However, there was a notable rise in the percentage of respondents who disliked the price of their packages and a rise in the percentage of respondents turning to chat for technical support.

There has also been an increasing trend of companies making their products available online, according to feedback from vendors

Methodology

The survey, which received 12,018 responses, was conducted in May 2010. The exhibits show detailed answers for 9 of the 17 products included in the survey: ATX 1040 (CCH), ATX MAX (CCH), Drake, GoSystem Tax, Lacerte, ProSeries (Intuit), ProSystem fx Tax (CCH), TaxWorks (RedGear Technologies), and UltraTax CS. Information and ratings for products that received fewer than 100 responses--Cross-Link 1040 by Petz Enterprises, Great Tax by Greatland Corp., Intuit ProLine Tax Online Edition, TaxACT, TaxSimple, TaxS-layer Pro, TaxWise, and TurboTax (Intuit's consumer product)--are not included in this article, but product information provided by the vendors is available online (see www.journalofaccountancy.com/web/2010TaxSoftwareSurvey.htm). Great-land did not submit the requested data, so information about that vendor's product is not listed.

Products and Users

Users of CCH's ProSystem fx Tax software...