Today I sat down to work on my taxes using Taxact just as I did last year. Because of Eugenia's report I did so with some trepidation. I was working om my iMac.
I chose to use importing but I don't think this in and of itself affected possible accessibility issues since I still had to go step-by-step through all the screens. In all cases, there was a main website and then a frame (with the word "body" (there's actually more to that frame title but that's what I can remember) in it) where the actual activity took place. I had absolutely no trouble with this website and have completed all but the Q&A sections for both state and federal. I am expecting to have the same captcha issue I had last year when I file and I do plan to have a sighted person come and just visually check through everything for me but since I imported the formats really should be correct so if it were not for the captcha, which does not seem to be accessible with captcha tools, I would not be afraid to finish it by myself. As for the website crashing, I only had one problem with this and my data was not lost when this happened. This appeared to be traceable to a time-out situation; I tried to stop it from timing out but ended up with busy signals. The best thing to do about this is probably to sign out if you need to pause to look for or calculate information or if you are interrupted, even if you are sure you will be right back - we all know how that goes! This report is in no way intended as a contradiction or belittlement of Eugenia's report; we all know that different people on different machines with different factors can have quite different results; sometimes the differences are easily explained and sometimes not. I just wanted to encourage people who have used taxact or are considering using it by describing my very positive experience so far. Btw I am doing this on my iMac which I returned to Mountain Lion. There is a possibility that Mavericks introduces more challenges because i notice in Mavericks that the Amazon website refreshes repeatedly and does other aggravating things! At any rate, my experience on safari with Mountain Lion on my iMac has been totally enjoyable except that i will no better than to leave the website open while I stop for anything from now on. It actually did give me some time before the timeout warning but I'd rather not even risk dealing with that situation. Hth. -- Cheryl I tried and tried to turn over a new leaf. I got crumpled wads of tear-stained paper thrown in the trash! Then God gave me a new heart and life: His joy for my despairing tears! And now, every day: "This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:21-23 ESV) On Jan 27, 2014, at 11:41 PM, Eugenia Firth <gigifi...@me.com> wrote: > Hi Justin and anybody else who wants to know > I think you said you downloaded Turbo Tax from the app store. So did I, and I > would like to share my comments in the hope it will save you grief. Since I > have met you once, I know for a fact that you are a better Mac user than I > am, but I think I would have had a lot more trouble with this program if I > had not had tax law experience in customer service. This let me determine > whether I had made correct choices, and it helped to guess with pretty good > accuracy quite a few of the choices. For instance, when it gets around to > asking you if you're married, I guessed the second button which is line 2 on > the 1040. That turned out to be right. If you guess wrong, which you probably > will many times, you have to go back and make another choice. It is better > than getting lost in Tax Act's web site because at least I don't have Safari > crashing. > > Having said that, there is hope for this program, especially if someone would > work with it to cut down on the guessing as to whether you are on the correct > button or checkbox. > > However, there is a serious problem if you do what I did. I lost VoiceOver > when I pressed command s, and the same problem did not occur when I quit the > program without saving and it gave me the chance to save. When I say I lost > Voice,over, it was worse than that. I had to shut down my computer, and it > saved the file, sort of, and labeled it as an unsaved Turbo Tax file, and I > couldn't find the thing. This is too bad, too, because I had got just about > everything done, got my self-employment and expenses done and everything. I > ended up with several of these files and I can't tell which one is the last > one that has all the good stuff in it. However, I don't think it will let me > recover the files because I never got around to entering the required stuff > that I never guessed I'd have to put in. > > I also discovered when I quit the program, that the computer showed me all > the stuff I had to put in such as a required password and security questions. > If I got asked those the first times I tried to save, I didn't know about it > because VoiceOver got killed. I think now that I have figured out what I'm > doing with it, I might go ahead and retype my information. > > Regards, > Gigi, who hopes she doesn't go through this every year > PS. It sure is disgusting when a program says things are going to be simple, > and of course they're not for us. > > On Jan 27, 2014, at 5:53 PM, Eugenia Firth <gigifi...@me.com> wrote: > >> Ok Justin, I downloaded Turbo Tax myself since it was free anyway. I did >> find out you have to turn VoiceOver off and then back on again to get the >> toolbar. I have no idea why, but so far it has worked. so I will continue on >> here and let y'all know how I get on with this little project. It's a good >> thing I retired from doing tax customer service so I will know if I have >> skipped anything. I could wait for the braille copies, and I might end up >> doing that. However, I am going to owe some money this year, so I want to >> get a head start so I will know how much estimated tax I have to pay for >> 2014. >> >> >> Regards, >> Gigi >> >> >> On Jan 27, 2014, at 5:31 PM, Eugenia Firth <gigifi...@me.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Justin >>> I have not a clue how TurboTax works as to accessibility issues. I think it >>> has a good reputation as far as I know for taxes, but you will have to let >>> us know how we accessibility is. >>> Sincerely, >>> Gigi >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Jan 27, 2014, at 5:04 PM, Justin Mann <w9...@me.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> How does TurboTax 2012? Work? I downloaded that from the Mac App Store >>>> this year, considering using that for my taxes. >>>> >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>>> On Jan 27, 2014, at 4:39 PM, Eugenia Firth <gigifi...@me.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi guys >>>>> Well, because I found out that the braille tax information on the IRS >>>>> website was still for 2012, I decided I'd try it again to electronic >>>>> file. I did taxact.com again. I thought it was bad last year, but in my >>>>> opinion, is worse this year. Yes, I got quite a lot of information in >>>>> there, but took me for ever to do it. I got lost several times, crashed >>>>> Safari several times, even the iPhone didn't work very well this year. I >>>>> had trouble all around, but I've really got in trouble when I tried to >>>>> edit and expense. I left out one accidentally, and I was trying to put it >>>>> in there. I got so lost I didn't know where I was lost from. It's not >>>>> Safari either, it's that stupid website. >>>>> >>>>> What royally Hacks me is that when I called their customer support >>>>> number, I was told I would have to pay first before they could talk to >>>>> me. She did give me an email address, so I wrote them and had a few >>>>> things to say. We will see if they get back with me or not. Oh yes, she >>>>> told me I could do a survey. I told her if the survey was an accessible >>>>> what good was that going to do me. >>>>> >>>>> Boy you can really avoid these accessibility issues if you make >>>>> everything and accessible for reporting problems and telling people they >>>>> to pay first to complain. >>>>> >>>>> Sincerely, >>>>> >>>>> Gigi >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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