THE COMPUTERPAPER GREATERTORONTO EDITION www.tcp.ca MARCH 1998 9 ]
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Tax software ano-brainer!
Considerable work has been done on this program since last year and it shows. There
Cayrtinaect frowypage EI4 also supported), 8 MB RAM, a few MB hard drive space, 2x CD-ROM drive, sound card, mouse and printer. Gene Katz and Marshail Loeb, prominent Canadian financial personalities, offer advice in a video format. There is really nothing nicer than having something explained by a person. However, because QuickTax is also a disk product there is extensive help in standard written form. QuickTax comes in a two-stage format. The Head Start version was available before Christmas. This version is complete but will not let you file because all tax forms have not yet been final ized by Revenue Canada. When you register the program you automatically receive the final filing version in February. QuickTax will let you do up to 18 returns. There are numerous features for which there is no room here to discuss. Some include: the RRSP Planner, Tax Calendar and Loan and Saving Planner. Whether for its depth, easewf-use or interface, extensive support, tax reference material, or good value, QuickTax is the best. HoeneTax Final Deluxe Version From: Softkey Software Products Inc. 2700 Matheson Blvd. E., 8th Floor, WestTower, Mississauga, ON,L4W4V9 Tel: 905-624-0303
www.hometax.corn Suggested retail price: $29.95 Running a very close second and competitive on every count, HomeTax is a beautiful and friendly way to do your taxes. This is a Windows-only product that comes in 16-bit and 32-bit versions. You can purchase it at retail outlets or from the company's Web page. If you are a regular client, you.can get the price knocked down to $19.95 — a great value. The CD-ROM version reviewed here, is excellent and does use multimedia, although not a well as QuickTax. When you are in the program, most help and other information is supplied in a written format. For true full-featured, multimedia you need to run the separate, Multimedia Tutorial. This is a well-done, overview of the program and various tax information. Although this is very professional work, an integrated format is more useful and convenient. This small note aside, HomeTax Deluxe is deluxe. System requirements are the same as for QuickTax: a multimedia computer.
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are dozens of small improvements, from the little man or woman that stands beside your cursor at all times to remind you that you are in the husband or wife's return (easily turned off if you like); to system wide improvements, such as the program's use of browser-like frames. Aesthetically, this is now a beautiful interface. The program uses the newest convention of flat buttons. Also new, the use of button bars that slide to reveal data, as is used in Internet Fxplorer 4.0. In fact, the whole look and feel of this program is new and slick. But you' re wrong if you think this is a case of beauty over brawn, HomeTax has plenty of functions and features too. Like QuickTax there is an RRSP applet. You can use an interview of forms method of completing up to 16 returns. The Auditor performs the expected checkup to see if you' ve forgotten anything. One rather interesting new feature is the pie chart representation of any number of differentsetsofdata.Forexample, you can see a pie
showing how much of your money goes to the province, the feds and yourself. Another is the Watch box, which allows you to drag any numerical box from your return into a little window at the bottom of the screen. Any changes that you make to your return will be displayed in the Watch box. HomeTax is a great program that shared our Review's Choice award last year. We would love to give all three ot these programs this award. Of course, not many people would have watched the Nagano Games if the top three Olympians all received gold. CanTax 98 From: CanTax (adivision of Soflkey Software) 200-61 30 3rd Street SE,Calgary, AB, T2H 1K4 Tel: 800-265-3600
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