So I'm using TurboTax for the first time. (Don't laugh. I got my first cell phone last year.) It's a very good program, although it took a long time to load and install on my 500-MB RAM machine. But I'm a little disconcerted by the frequent fixes, even as tax season is upon us and April 15 approaches. There have now been a dozen updates, some with half a dozen or more fixes. The most recent update was last week. Many fixes are functional -- preventing glitches and crashes.
But many affect your tax calculation. Most of these seem to be minor, but some are not. "Fixed erroneously qualifying for the First-Time Homebuyer Credit" is one of the latter. Even so, I don't blame TurboTax very much. Every release is beta to a great extent. The government keeps changing the rules. TT actually has a deadline that must be met, as opposed to, say, USB 3.0. Some updates were unavoidable -- allowing deductible donations for Haiti. Kudos to TT for being transparent and forthright about its updates.
Instead, I present TT's endless updates as Exhibit 4,568 in the case for demonstrating the impenetrable complexity of the United States tax system. The system is a bloody nightmare. In a perfect world, you wouldn't need a 176 MB program to do your taxes.