Tax app showdown (photos)

What are the major differences among TurboTax, TaxAct, and H&R Block At Home? We'll show you in this photo gallery.

Jessica Dolcourt

Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).

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Jessica Dolcourt

Feb. 25, 2010 12:11 p.m. PT

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Winner: TurboTax

What's different among TurboTax, TaxAct, and H&R Block At Home tax prep applications? Their interview processes may be similar, but the quality of their additional tools, help and support features, and language are key.

Turbo Tax (Windows|Mac|Online) was our top pick for offering the most complete feature set, a strong Help system, and clear language. H&R Block At Home (Windows|Mac|Online) followed closely, offering strong live support but was weaker importing information, and at times had slightly more confusing explanations. Tax Act (Windows|Online) may be cheapest app, but it also lacks adequate help measures and importing. Read our full tax app roundup.

2 of 7 Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

Importing

H&R Block At Home (previously H&R Block TaxCut) did everyone a favor by introducing the capability to import data from financial institutions like banks and brokerages. But the listing is still not as complete as TurboTax's. TaxAct has limited capability to import W-2 information, the previous year's tax files, and 1099 data (it can will import capital gains info from the GainsKeeper service and from a CSV file--that's it.) Read our full tax app roundup.

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Personal Tax Guide

H&R Block's Personal Tax Guide helpfully highlights tax details that apply to people in select professions, like teachers and military personnel. If H&R Block made it more interactive, it would be a real boon for many taxpayers. Read our full tax app roundup.

4 of 7 Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

Extras

TurboTax continues to add useful features, like bookmarking a screen in the online or desktop review to return to later. While the desktop version (shown here) displays every flag you create, the online version unfortunately hides the flags in a drop-down menu. Read our full tax app roundup.

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Ask Tina

TurboTax's online tax apps include Tina, a digital "assistant" to help answer questions, in addition to the crowd-sourced Live Community forum and the help files. Automated Tina was disappointingly never able to answer (or even understand) our questions. H&R Block's live tax chat is a better service. Read our full tax app roundup.

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Why language is important

While it's true that the tax interview in TaxAct, TurboTax, and H&R Block At Home all cover the same ground, the importance of clear language cannot be overlooked. TaxAct's jargony help files only added to the confusion, and failed to include specific terms in its interview that stumped us. H&R Block At Home surfaced this alarming screen, without providing extra context or help files. Read our full tax app roundup.

7 of 7 Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

TaxAct

Seeing exactly where on the Federal tax form your information pops up is one TaxAct feature we did appreciate. While H&R Block and TurboTax both make the tax form available, TaxAct's default view lent the app its own character, and made us appreciate once again that we weren't completing the form ourselves. Read our full tax app roundup.