A recent study found that tax professionals like their software, but fewer would recommend them to others, with just two exceptions.
The survey, conducted by the National Association of Tax Practitioners, asked respondents to rate the following software packages from 1-5 in terms of their overall satisfaction: ATX by Wolters Kluwer; Drake Tax by Drake Software; Lacerte Tax by Intuit; ProConnect Tax by Intuit; ProSeries Tax Professional by Intuit; TaxAct Professional by TaxAct; TaxSlayer Pro by TaxSlayer; TaxWise by Wolters Kluwer; and UltraTax by Thomson Reuters.
When it came to overall satisfaction, not a single one was rated below a 4, indicating that people generally like the software they use. TaxAct and Drake Tax scored the highest but not by much. The difference became much more pronounced when people were asked whether they would recommend their tax software to another professional. In there, these two software packages were far and away recommended more than any of the others.
This might be due to the large number of users. The survey found that Drake Software is the most commonly used, with 38% of respondents using the software. Following Drake for most commonly used is ProSeries Tax Professional by Intuit (14%), UltraTax CS by Thomson Reuters (10%) and ATX by Wolters Kluwer (7%).
The survey also found 46% of respondents consider the reliability of software as the most important factor when choosing a brand. TaxAct Professional Edition, said the report, came through as the most reliable software and most reasonably priced.
The report tracked a wide variety of other metrics as well. Survey respondents said ProConnect Tax was the easiest to install; TaxAct Professional was seen as the easiest to learn; TaxAct Professional and ATX by Wolters Kluwers were approximately tied for how easy they are to work with; Lacert Tax by Intuit was the easiest to review returns within the software; and TaxAct Professional was seen as the easiest for e-filing. Drake and TaxAct Professional were also seen as the best value for their price. TaxSlayer was seen as having the best technical support and customer service.
The survey was administered to a 50% random sample of NATP’s members (n=10,744). A total of 1,214 members responded to the survey for an overall response rate of 11%
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