Turbo Tax (and many other tax preparation software programs) also makes record keeping easier by consolidating your financial information.

It came down to a choice between Turbo Tax and Tax Cut.

The Software Etc. salesman roundly endorsed Tax Cut, which he didn't have in stock, over Turbo Tax, which he did.

Using Turbo Tax or one of its competitors makes life easier for filers.

Still, one of the slickest is Turbo Tax from Chipsoft Inc., at (619) 453-8722.

Turbo Tax also comes in a Pro Series version for professional tax preparers, $395 for the Federal version and $250 for the state.

My wife and I finished ours off this Friday, and for the third year, we used Turbo Tax for the Web.

The industry leader, Intuit Inc., maker of Turbo Tax and Macintax, saw its share of units sold at retail fall to 71.6 percent from 89.3 percent.

Intuit's Turbo Tax retails widely for $29.95.

The programming error was reportedly fixed, but as of 2012 Turbo Tax offers no option to download a data file directly from the financial institution.