taxwoman

That is the correct number. However, it's tough to know if you are really talking to an ATX tech person or a TaxWise tech person.

Many trade magazines do surveys all the time. However, sometimes I just don't trust them. Frankly, I think it depends on how many ads a vendor is willing to purchase in a magazine that helps that vendor's "good" rating. Usually, I think it's just better to talk to other people and find out what they're using and compare the good/bad points of the software.

Do you know what's really sad about this whole mess. I spoke to a TaxWise tech person this week and he admitted to me that they had so many incoming phone calls earlier this month, they had to open up a back-up phone center in KS. Imagine that! They lay off many good experienced ATX tech people in Caribou (I guess to "save money"), but then turn right around in hire a bunch of inexperienced back-up people in KS because they couldn't handle all the incoming calls. Talk about being "penny wise and pound foolish." Oh well, back to taxes.

I hope they don't try to push TaxWise on us. I've been using ATX for five years. It's not the best service in the world, but it meets my needs and the price is reasonable. A friend of mine use to subscribe to Pencile Pushers (I think that's the name). He told me that CCH bought out that company a few years ago. Before you know it, CCH drop the program and tried to switch subscribers to their tax prep program instead - but they ended up jaking up the price and some customers didn't like CCH. That is what I'm afraid is going to happen to ATX - CCH may eventually phase the program out and force us to take TaxWise -- "take it or leave it" attitude. These big companies just don't understand that if it's not broken don't "fix it." When will they ever learn? As for TaxWise tech support, I've called them a couple times. They seem friendly but not very knowledgeable about ATX. It's funny - when I use to call ATX I would always get a New England accent, but when I call TaxWise I've been getting a Southern accent - and to think they could fool us in believing that nothing had changed with their technical support personnel.