Bug Taxes Intuit Mac Pack Users

Accounting software developer Intuit has been forced to offer refunds to users of its Macintax product after a bug was found that could alter their tax returns.

Jacqueline Maartense, Intuit UK managing director, said a problem arose when users changed information in their tax return form after signing it off.

The package contained no warning that users had to save changes they had made, but if they did not do so they wound up sending the unchanged form.

?This only affects electronic filers, but Intuit has a 100 per cent satisfaction guarantee, so if a customer suffers penalties as a result we have offered to pay,? Maartense said.

?But we don?t expect it to be a big liability because it doesn?t affect many users.?

The financial software supplier claims that nobody has complained so far about the problem, which affects only about one per cent of its tax software users. The bug is limited to those users who file their tax returns electronically using the Macintosh platform.

Maartense transferred over to the UK operation of Intuit three months ago after heading up its Quicken division in the US. Quicken is the developer?s flagship product.