TurboTax 2005 has now been updated to import data from
TaxCut 2004.

- quote -

proceed with transferring your information now [after
updating]. If you are a TurboTax Desktop for Macintosh user,
or a TurboTax Online user, an Update scheduled for February
18, 2006 supports your information transfer."

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"Barry Margolin" <barmar[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:
- quote -

It's a function that has worked in the past and customers
would expect that it works now. It should be on the
package. But I'll have to admit that this is really
Taxcut's fault. They obviously encrypted their tax file to
keep Taxcut customers from moving to TT. I'm surprised
that Intuit can't figure out the encryption scheme by now.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

The ecryption scheme in popular tax programs used to be
poor. You could run standard file search utilities on them
and find plaintext strings like social security numbers. I
hope its stronger now.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Stuart A. Bronstein" <spamtrap[at]lexregia.com> wrote:
- quote -

There's a difference between what a company SHOULD do
ethically and what you EXPECT a company to do realistically.
Except for government-required wording (like nutrition
labels on food), packaging is all *marketing*. Other than
not avoiding blatant lies, I wouldn't expect helpful
technical information.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar[at]alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

Barry Margolin <barmar[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:
- quote -

Well, they should if it would be something someone would
reasonably expect it to do based on the way it's advertised.

Stu

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Bob L" <nospam[at]nospam.com> wrote:

- quote -

Do you REALLY expect the packaging to list the things a
product *doesn't* do? Welcome to the real world.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar[at]alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

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- quote -

I found this after I posted this message and sent it to my
friend. I understand Inutit's problem and I hope they
figure out the encryption scheme but they should have
mentioned this on the TT05 box. I guess my friend also
bought Quicken Basic and had clipped the "proof of
ownership" tab to send to Intuit for the rebate before he
figured out that he couldn't import the Taxcut data. As a
result Best Buy wouldn't take TT05 back for a refund.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

- quote -

It's not really a security concern. That was something of an
evasive response from Intuit a few weeks ago. What happened
is that TaxCut encrypted its 2004 tax return files, which it
never did before. Apparently Intuit found it much more
difficult to import from the encrypted file, and at some
point gave up and released TurboTax without the feature.
They are still looking into the possibility of implementing
it for the current tax year.

On Jan. 24 Bob Meighan, a VP at Intuit, posted the following
on the TurboTax user forum.

"Just wanted you to know that we are still working on
functionality for a TaxCut to TurboTax transfer. I haven't
promised it, but I can tell you that it is something our
engineering team continues to work on. If this were
something easy to do, we would have released it a long time
ago. It's not easy. More later this week or early next week.

Bob Meighan
VP, TurboTax"

Link to that post:
http://forums.turbotax.com/intuit/bo...ge.id=501#M501

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I just got an email from a friend of mine who has used
Taxcut for a couple of years but wants to return to
Turbotax. After buying and installing TT05, he found that
TT05 won't import Taxcut data due to "security reasons"
according to the Turbotax website. I confirmed this by
entering "Taxcut" in TT05's help system and reading the help
file. This is a drastic change from previous versions of TT
which always have been able to import Taxcut data. Looking
at the box that came with TT05 deluxe there is nothing on
the box to indicate this change.

This is a real problem for him as he does several returns
(his mother-in-law, two daughters, etc.) other than his own
and there is a lot of data. I'm sure it would be a huge
problem for many of us. He stated that he would never buy
any Inuit product again. I suggested he take it back and
buy Taxcut.

Anyone know just what this "security concern" is all about
or is this just more BS from Intuit?

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >