NATP’s Annual Tax Software Survey

The National Association of Tax Preparers (NATP) has released its annual survey of tax preparation software, “Sorting Out Software.” The NATP survey used a different methodology than the 2014 AICPA Software Survey (included in another post), but Drake Software again leads the tax software vendor’s list with impressive scores.

NATP conducts the tax preparation software survey to provide its members with valuable, up-to-date information to assist them with the selection of tax preparation software. A 50% random sample of NATP’s members received this survey via email (n = 11,370). A total of 2,041 participants completed it for an overall response rate of 18%. A random sample was used because NATP has transitioned its efforts to this type of probability-based sampling, which allows the organization to generalize its member population within a measurable margin of error.

Historically, NATP members have been preparing taxes for 29 or more years. Participants were asked how many computer-generated 1040 returns they prepared from January to April 2014. 26% responded 100 or less, 16% indicated 101–200, 12% stated 201–300, 46% indicated more than 300.

When asked about the most important aspect when choosing a software program, reliability received the most responses (53%), followed by ease of use (20%), customer support (15%), and price (12%). 78% of respondents either used Drake Software, ProSeries Professional (Intuit), Lacerte Tax (Intuit), Ultra Tax CS (Thomson Reuters), or ATX (CCH Small Firm Services). 84% of respondents said they will use the same software program next tax season.

On a scale of 1.0 to 5.0, with 5.0 being the best rating, Drake Software was the top-rated tax preparation software in numerous categories: