Intuit users find software bug taxing

Personal finance software company Intuit has admitted that a bug in its Quicktax 97 product has caused thousands of UK users to fill in self-assessment tax forms incorrectly.

Last week, the company began to contact the 50,000 UK users that may have been affected, promising that it would pay any penalties incurred by users which have underpaid their tax because of the software mistake.

Intuit has not yet decided whether to repay interest to users who have overpaid.

The product, designed to help taxpayers fill in the government?s new self-assessment form, was given away as a complimentary add-on to Intuit?s core software, Quicken, which has a user base of 50,000. But Tony Macklin, UK marketing manager at Intuit, claimed that not all of the users would use the module.

Users reported several errors, which the company admitted were the result of in- adequate testing. These errors affect certain tax groups, such as people who have received lump sum payments, and self-employed factory owners.

Intuit stressed that most of those affected would have overpaid their tax, as they were groups entitled to allowances, while the underpayers are likely to be a very limited group.

The errors do not affect US or continental users.

This is the second time in recent months that Intuit has been hit by a bug. In March, the company was forced to offer refunds to users of its Macintosh product after a bug was found that could alter tax refunds (PC Dealer, 12 March).