Online Tax Preparation - Tango Got Me Twisted January 29, 2008
Posted by jshum in : Technology, Web 2.0, tax , trackbackH&R Block, the tax preparation giant, has launched yet another new tax product called Tango. This “cool” product, as they tout, offers online tax preparation through a slick Flash interface with Web 2.0 - style graphics, but what makes it different from their TaxCut product that also offers online tax preparation? Well, for the price of $70, you can get your federal and state taxes prepared and unlimited online tech support. If the only thing that separates this product from their other product is unlimited tech support, than this extra support offering better be worth the extra few bucks.
So after giving it a try, I was quite disappointed. One simple question got me this result:
The built in widgets seems pretty “cool” as they’ve mentioned numerous times on the site, but my question about the 1065 resulted in - oops! - some 3rd world English response and a system disconnect - guess that question wasn’t in their script provided by the training manager.
Let’s see - Tango had a big booth at MacWorld - served up some fine local keg brew while letting me hang out on their couches, but what has this got to do with Mac’s? They don’t even have a Mac product… Oh, but I guess you can run Tango via a Web browser, which I suppose would be supported on a Mac… okay, so guess I shouldn’t say they don’t belong there.
Last year Tango launched… then failed to launch. They offered online filing, but in the end required you to print out and mail your forms - so much for a complete online tax solution.
And what’s really humorous is that their offshore development team tried to use Tango as a their product centerpiece to get more software development business. When I called to see if they could help me build my own tax product, they turned me down and said it was a conflict of interest. Why bother to make this whole marketing collateral piece touting their expertise in tax software development?
At any rate, I suppose they’re trying - their stock hasn’t been this low since 2003, and it would probably be best to try to appeal to the next generation of young and hip tax filers. They’ve got property in SecondLife, so who knows what tax filing will be like in the future. As you might have heard, income and property tax legislation is a held up in Washington for SecondLife so they might be the experts in getting the most from your Linden dollar investments.
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