The Tax Man Cometh: Free Filing Online

[JPie]

It’s that time of the year again! For those of you with simple income reporting (W-2, 1099), I highly recommend checking out the free fillable form from the IRS. We started using it last year after paying Turbo Tax too much every season, and we never want to go back.

Scroll down for the free fillable form: https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-free-file-do-your-taxes-for-free

For your state return, you’ll want to check your own state’s website to see what your options are.

California has free online filing here: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/index.asp?WT.ac=Home_Ad_CalFile

 

[missy]

We did our taxes last month and already got our state and federal refunds. I hate giving them more than we should but we can never estimate exactly right so I always prefer it this way. Rather overpay in the short term than owe afterwards and the refunds are always nice lol

 

[Inked]

I'm a CPA which is why I havent posted in forever, i work insane hours... Everyone is SO LATE this year!!!!!! Its so weird, normally people come in fairly evenly. I had EVERYONE come in sooo late, I am so behind!! I dont know how I will get them all done!!

 

[LilAlex]

I highly recommend checking out the free fillable form from the IRS.

Yes! This will be great. I suspect it will be de-funded or privatized now, sadly.

I love FreeTaxUSA. It's much better than TT in that if you answer a question incorrectly, you aren't forever locked out of that part of the return. TT is a little too "simple" and that makes things needlessly complicated when/if you need to re-visit a section. Plus, you can look at many of your actual forms as you go -- so much easier to navigate. Federal is free and state is like $8 and I usually upgrade for the advanced help for another $7 or so. There is a forum for questions that is so-so. But the $7 (or maybe $15?) customer service has been quite good.

I manually enter everything since with TT and with FreeTaxUSA I have encountered weird random errors when "importing" data from the brokerage account or when importing pdfs of 1099s. Hand-entering is slow if you have a ton of Schedule C and D stuff but I find that I really understand it better now. (I used an accountant for decades and he retired maybe 4 years ago so we now self-file.)

 

[JPie]

Yes! This will be great. I suspect it will be de-funded or privatized now, sadly.

I love FreeTaxUSA. It's much better than TT in that if you answer a question incorrectly, you aren't forever locked out of that part of the return. TT is a little too "simple" and that makes things needlessly complicated when/if you need to re-visit a section. Plus, you can look at many of your actual forms as you go -- so much easier to navigate. Federal is free and state is like $8 and I usually upgrade for the advanced help for another $7 or so. There is a forum for questions that is so-so. But the $7 (or maybe $15?) customer service has been quite good.

I manually enter everything since with TT and with FreeTaxUSA I have encountered weird random errors when "importing" data from the brokerage account or when importing pdfs of 1099s. Hand-entering is slow if you have a ton of Schedule C and D stuff but I find that I really understand it better now. (I used an accountant for decades and he retired maybe 4 years ago so we now self-file.)

Thank you for the recommendation! I love free fillable forms, but if you’re right about it getting privatized, it’s good to have a plan B.