I could use a couple of these after today. I am usually so organized. I set up a new spreadsheet at the start of every year. On it I track my hours billed, expenses, travel costs etc. I carefully track each receipt by date, cost code, item purchased, GST paid etc. It makes tax time a snap, well, as much of a snap as it can be when you are self employed.
OK, I’m annoyed by this tax season.
The first annoyance was discovering that there is no tax software for the Mac. No QuickTax, No UFile. Both companies say “We serve the Mac Community well through our online tax software”
I don’t mind NetFiling. In fact I think it’s great. But I’m leery about actually doing my tax preparation and storing my tax data online. I don’t know…. since I can’t download the final file, and it resides on some server somewhere…that just bothers me. Hackers, disgruntled employees….who knows where my information might end up.
But, I’m in a bind, I’m on a Mac now and I need to do my taxes. So I sign up for UFile. Quicktax still has me disgruntled from past practices so I try to stay away from them, and UFile is at least wholly Canadian.
First decision over, I set up an account and do a cursory hunt for the place where I can upload my data from my 2007 tax year desktop software. Can’t find it, send an email. Close the program. At that point I couldn’t do my taxes anyway since my government contract provider hadn’t yet sent me the confirmation of payment for 2008.
Bounce forward three weeks….no response to my email to UFile…..hmm this is not good.
The clock is ticking so I have to get started. I head back into UFile online and try to see where I can upload my previous years tax info from the Ufile tax file. Hmmmm…where is that option hiding. Can’t find it. Get irritated. Decide to check out Quicken online. Same problem, although I find a link to “carry forward 2007 Quicktax file” Of course that won’t read a UFile format, so I pop back into UFile online and what do I find….? Carry forward Quicktax file…. HUH?
So let me get this straight. Quicktax will import Quicktax files but not UFile files. OK, that makes sense. And UFile online will import Quicktax files but not UFile files???? That makes no sense at all! In fact, that’s just messed up!
So, now all I have for an option is to drag out the Toshiba laptop, go to Future Shop, buy UFile for Windows, install it, import my 2007 file information, and do my darned files on a clunky Windows program, on a lousy PC.
That’s just bloody annoying!!!!
Quicken…UFile….. Get with the program!