Income Tax 2021 2022 lists 30 tax software, hitting tax refunds to the backs dive in into income tax 2021 2022. tax software will be one of the three perspective three angles that will look at tax law through the other two being with the use of a formula with the use of the actual tax forms.
00:23
And then, of course, with the use of tax software. And this course, we’re going to be using Lacerte tax software. I’m not affiliated to Lacerte tax software, but it is software that we’re familiar with,
00:34
you don’t need to have a cert tax software in order to follow along with the course the general concept of being that we want the idea of being able to use the tax software to help us populate the forms and then be able to jump from the tax software to the forms, and then be able to analyze the forms in a more theoretical method, taking a step back thinking about it in terms of a tax formula.
00:57
So you don’t really need the same type of software, you don’t really need any software in order to follow along with the course because we’re going to use the data input of the software to generate the forms and then take a look at and analyze the forms.
01:10
But if you did have access to tax software, it can be a great tool, because clearly the software is designed to guide people through the tax law.
01:19
And so it can be a useful help in order to understand the tax law as well to safeguard against mistakes as you do data input into the software and helps you to populate the actual tax forms. So there’s a whole lot of different software’s that you can use.
01:35
And it can be quite overwhelming when you’re thinking about the different tax software’s. The one we’re going to be using here is going to be a surtax. Again, you don’t need to have Lacerte tax. But you can think about the types of software in two separate kind of categories in general, professional software, and then the individual software,
01:54
they’ll assert fall into the professional software kind of category, many different professional software’s will be much the same, in that they’re trying to maximize more tax returns that can be done in a shorter period of time.
02:07
Clearly, their pricing structure will be structured in such a way that it’s going to be for people that do a lot of tax returns, that data input will be structured in such a way that it’s assuming that the person putting the data in has a pretty good understanding of the tax law.
02:22
And it’s making the jumping back and forth from the data input to the tax forms the form 1040, for example, very easy.
02:29
So you can see the data input, go right to the tax form, individual software software designed to help individuals who may not be as experienced with the tax law is designed in more of an interview process, asking you questions as you go through the data input,
02:45
so that it can help guide you through the types of things that you might need in more of a question and answer type of format, great for people that that are doing their own tax return, possibly people that don’t know exactly what they want to do in terms of the tax law or what might be applicable to them.
03:02
But it can be more time consuming as you jump back and forth from the actual tax forms to the data input screens, both both software’s would be great, you can use any software,
03:13
and follow along with the course because the concept of putting the data input into the system, and then checking the tax forms that are generated from it is one that were is the main thing we’re looking for just in theory or in principle,
03:27
if you want to experiment with different types of tax software that you can look into the software we’re using is by Intuit, which is also the owner of QuickBooks. But it’s easier to find a cert tax software by basically typing it into the search window in your favorite browser Lacerte tax software. For some reason, I think they keep the brand a little bit distinct from their other from their other brands and their accounting software.
03:50
So for example, if I went to the Intuit website, INTU it.com into it being the owner of QuickBooks, you see a snapshot of their software’s up top, which includes TurboTax, upfront, at least at this point, because it’s tax season, possibly. And then of course, QuickBooks is up here.
04:09
And then they got some other of their of their applications up top. They don’t have a cert for some reason. I don’t know why that is. But if you go into if you just search in a browser for low cert tax software, then you’ll find something and again, it’s an it’s an intuit.com website that you can take a look at it.
04:29
And it looks like they do have a free trial version down here. So if I went to their compare professional stuff right here, it’s got the start the free trial.
04:41
So you might be able to get a free trial of it, which would be great for practice if you were able to do that or any kind of software that you can practice with. And then they have their comparison here. This is the Intuit assert versus the Intuit Pro Connect tax and the Intuit pro service, Pro Series tax.
04:59
So You can do some comparing and contrasting. If you are working as a tax professional, then you want to base it, you want to really consider what your tax software will be.
05:09
Because obviously, they have different prices on them, they can be expensive, that’s going to be one of your biggest expenses, most likely if you were doing a tax professional, or preparing taxes.
05:20
And you might be saying, Hey, I’m going to go for software that meets my needs. But if it doesn’t grow with you at the same point in time, you want to, you want to be careful of that, because it can be quite tedious moving from one software to another software, if you’re a tax professional.
05:35
So clearly you want secure tax software, you would like tax software that will be able to expand with you, as you expand your business, I’m not promoting a cert in essence,
05:43
to do that you can you can look at these software’s in any software that you want. But just realize that what you really want to be able to do is is pro forma the data forward.
05:53
So you want software that if I did prior year’s tax return, I want to be able to perform that soft that data into the next year’s tax return, which will help me with a side by side comparison, it’ll typically give me reports that gives me a side by side, it’ll help me with some of the data input, because it’ll give me the some of the stuff from the prior year,
06:12
it will help to generate kind of data input forms for your clients, meaning you can give them like an organizer to help them organize their data, the software can do that.
06:25
And if there’s any carryover information that needs to be carried over for whatever reason, from the prior year to the current year, that stuff is way easier,
06:34
you know, if you’re using the same software from the prior year to the current year, rather than try to data input in it in again, so so just be careful. If you’re starting a business from scratch, put some time in to think about what’s the best software,
06:49
what’s the software that you think is going to be around for a long period of time, what’s the software that will be able to expand with my business,
06:55
if I’m currently working in one state, can I buy software that’s going to be working in multiple states, if I need multiple states, where my if I going to expand to have multiple states, or do I not need that feature, and so on and so forth.
07:08
So, so keep that in mind. And one more time, I’m not I’m not promoting low cert necessarily to do that. That’s just one I’ve got familiar with. I’ve used a cert for more than any other tax software, although I’ve used other software’s, as well. And if you’re on an individual taxes TurboTax.
07:26
Again, this happens to be the Intuit website, which I work with with QuickBooks and whatnot. So I’m familiar with the name TurboTax, although I don’t use it much because I use the cert.
07:38
But that’s that’s for the individual side of things. So if you just want one tax return to be filed, then that would be most likely the pricing model would be designed around something like that. And then if you wanted to look into other options for free software,
07:53
you could go to the IRS website, we might look at this more in a future presentation. But on the IRS website, they got something called IRS Free File. And then it’s basically linking you to other types of software that has a Free File component to it if your income is below a certain threshold.
08:10
So that could be useful for individuals, and you might be able to basically just started, you might be able to advise people, you know on how to how to do this, through software that’s actually free.
08:21
By simply helping them out to find the tools to prepare their tax returns that are below a certain threshold and figuring out what the best tools are out there. For them. That could be a valuable thing for a lot of people because this stuff can be confusing, especially with a lot of the law changes that have happened.
08:38
So we might go into some of this Free File stuff and some of the other kind of software’s that are available in a little bit more detail in future presentations. Note, I did take a look at their free trial as well and logged into that.
08:50
And here’s what I have for the free trial. If you want to look into that further. It says maybe this can help get you started. Try them for free, get free trial version of pro series or cert and Pro Connect and see for yourself why our suite of solutions
09:05
remain the number one choice of tax professionals. Again, I’m not promoting them. This is just I’m just checking them out here. So you might want to take a look at it, you can get free access to it and practice with it.
09:14
We have the download the Pro Series trial here, download the cert, and it says the Pro Series evolution includes Pro Series tax software for tax year 2019. So you might be looking at something that’s going to be older tax software.
09:27
Obviously, they don’t want to give you the software that you would be using at the current point so that you can basically prepare your taxes for free but you can still basically practice with it. The Evolution software will not E file or print so you’re not going to be able to print or file it with the software.
09:43
Otherwise it is fully functional one copy per practice new customers only they’ll assert evolution includes Lacerte tax software for tax year 2019. The evaluation software will not E file or print. Otherwise it’s fully functional one copy per practice.
10:00
New customers only. And then they have they finished the Pro Connect sign up already an Intuit customer. If you already use Intuit, QuickBooks will assert pro serious or TurboTax.
10:11
Simply sign up with same username and password you already have and you’ll get immediate access to Pro Connect for free. If you use the Pro Connect in the past your account is still active. So just sign up in again and reset your password to gain free access sign in to your existing Intuit account.
10:29
So there are some options that may be available to you to get some practice in or some some information about different types of software and analyze them a little bit further.