Business tax software for mac?

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Business tax software for mac?

Anyone know of business tax (estates) software for Mac? I'd rather not use Parallels, Windows, etc.

Posted on Nov 9, 2011 7:36 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Stampguy

Level 1

13 points

Nov 9, 2011 8:06 PM in response to Lawrence Acker

Hi Lawrence -

I've been an eBay Power Seller for several years. When I started out I was using a Dell with Win/XP and I purchased Intuit's Quickbooks Professional 2006. I've since dumped my Dell, gone to two iMac's and a MacBook Air. Unfortunately, I have not found an AFFORDABLE, easy to use, and easy to migrate to product that runs natively on the Mac. I am using VMware's Fusion V4 and Win/XP under it. The QB Pro still plugs along doing a great job of keeping my bookkeeping straight. I've got a couple ham radio related programs that do not have Mac counterparts, so I can't say that Fusion is used strictly for QB.

While I can't give you a suggestion for business software for the Mac, my suggestion is that you shouldn't 100% rule out a Win-based product. Performance-wise, my Win apps are very fast running under Fusion.

Jim

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Answer 2

steve359

Level 6

17,175 points

Nov 9, 2011 8:15 PM in response to Lawrence Acker

You might enjoy the last entry in the list ... the other entries may or may not help.

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Answer 3

Nov 10, 2011 5:26 AM in response to Stampguy

Thanks. This may be the only practical solution. I had hoped to avoid exposing my Mac to viruses, malware and the other intrusions that I think of with Windows-based programs. Did you have to install not only Windows but all of the other protections to use the Windows business tax program?

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Answer 4

Nov 10, 2011 5:28 AM in response to steve359

Thanks for forwarding this. It was a little bit spooky to think that my little question is part of the Google universe of data.

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Answer 5

steve359

Level 6

17,175 points

Nov 10, 2011 9:50 AM in response to Lawrence Acker

As I understand it, install in a VM is much safer than directly in a partition. The entire memory contents are "bubbled in" and cannot escape.

But it did look like some of that software may be Mac-compatible.

I have seen TurboTax installed on a Mac as mac software. Just the "business estate tax" level of support would be in question.

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Answer 6

Nov 10, 2011 9:53 AM in response to Lawrence Acker

I use Filemaker to create bill and yearly tax report

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Answer 7

Nov 10, 2011 10:46 AM in response to steve359

I have used the Turbotax Mac version of personal tax software and it works about as well as Turbotax ever does (far better than I could do without it; but with curious anomalies here and there--much like the tax code itself). The one tax program that deals with fiduciary tax materials requiring the filing of a Form 1041 from TurboTax is the Business version and it is for Windows only. As it happens H&R Block has its own version for Form 1041, but it too is for Windows only.

Your understanding that VM is "bubbled" though so a virus or other problem cannot escape is very helpful as it would limit my fear of contagion. I'll try to explore that further and report back if I get confirmation of your understanding.

Thanks.

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Answer 8

Nov 10, 2011 10:48 AM in response to illidan155

My level of skill and knowldege would not enable me to use Filemaker to prepare the filing version of tax returns. I'm just a dilletante. But thanks for the suggestion.

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Answer 9

steve359

Level 6

17,175 points

Nov 10, 2011 2:41 PM in response to Lawrence Acker

Even if it did somwhow escape, the fundamental OS principles differences between Windows and Mac are so great you would need to catch one of the very few mac-oriented bugs, and they would have to know your Windws was running inside a Mac to decide that a Windows-into-Mac path is the way to go.

Too many people responding to sweepstakes offerings and UPS package notification e-mails in Windows world to worry *that much* about mac-heads.

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