I’m sure doing it manually is the safest, but perhaps there’s a least poison for software/services for filing US taxes. What do you recommend? (or, atleast, what do you recommend steering clear of)
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I can’t vouch for freetaxusa.com enough. Please, if at all possible, don’t use the big tax software. They are almost 100% responsible for the U.S. not having an easy tax system like other countries.
Second this! I used it for the first time last year, and will absolutely use it again this year. Fuck TurboTax
not having an easy tax system like other countries
Which countries, please? Income tax forms are horrible everywhere I know about (which is like 5 countries, so not a huge sample, to be fair).
There are several countries out there where the government sends you your tax bill automatically. There aren’t dozens of forms to fill out. The tax system doesn’t have thousands of deductions for obscure one-off items. Our government knows exactly what we owe. Why do we have to fill out paperwork to tell them what we owe, then get in trouble when it’s wrong?
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-other-countries-use-return-free-filing
There are countries woth easy tax systems?! Where?
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I can also vouch for FreeTaxUSA, I’ve compared it against a few major tax companies and at least for relatively simple stuff, they were totally identical results, and just as easy to use.
There are a few options for free filing based on income (generally, lower that $79k) here: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
And if you’re in one of 12 lucky states, there’s an IRS Direct File trial program:
Arizona California Florida Massachusetts Nevada New Hampshire New York South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington state WyomingLike others said FreeTaxUSA. We use it and like it.
Just know one downside is that it does not do direct imports from financial firms or other data sources. You have to enter the data. Otherwise for individual taxes, it is pretty complete. It also does not do Form 1041 returns which is for Trusts and Estates as separate entities, that is under their own EINs. Most people do not need that.
Edit: Looks like this year a few imports have been added. One seems to be W-2 from PDF. The other is last year returns from some common other tax return providers. Not tried any of these. They already imported their own last year data.
Fuck turbo tax, that shit sucks don’t use it - can’t say enough bad things about it. I’ve used cash app to file for free for a few years now. I doubt their privacy policy is any good, but it works well and I’m not trying to fuck around with my taxes…
I use and recommend Free File Fillable Forms. https://www.freefilefillableforms.com It’s basically filling out an electronic version of the paper forms, but some fields are auto-calculated.
If your taxes are simple enough, you should do it yourself.
I only started paying other people to do it as my life got more complicated, marriage, kid, house, stock options, solar panels, etc. etc.
Jackson Hewlitt is terrible, will never use them again.
H&R Block is kind of the industry standard, but that also makes them a target:
https://www.koin.com/news/tax-payer-information-compromised-in-hr-block-break-in/
https://sileo.com/hr-block-identity-theft/
https://kesq.com/news/crime/2020/04/30/several-tax-files-stolen-from-hr-block-in-cathedral-city/
Your best bet would be to hire an independent tax accountant.
H&R Block forever earned themselves a place on my shit list a few years back when they plastered “free tax returns!” posters all over my area, got me to set an appointment, went into their office and waited over an hour past my appointment time, then brought me in, asked all the questions, established that I had a dead simple return…then informed me that their fee to do my taxes would be like $220.
When I asked what happened to the “free tax blah blah” that was on every bus stop and billboard in the area, I got some convoluted explanation that basically said, “oh it’s free to walk in and sit down and have the consultation you just got, but any actual filing would be a minimum fee of $200”. The guy added that part of the reason he was running so late was having to explain all this to everyone else who came in today as well. Basically admitting it was all just a massive bait and switch.
Walked out of there with my stuff and never looked back.
For anyone who’s basically just working at one job and not planning to itemize, I feel like doing it yourself is really not significantly more difficult than going to an accountant. You still have to answer questions and supply documentation…so if you can read and understand what “enter the value from box 4 here” means, you can do everything the accountant is doing for you.
Do you know if your going to be filling out a 1040EZ or the full blown 1040? Do you own a business or are you an employee? If you make below “x” amount of money whatever irs.gov recommends because there’s a law that it has to be free and accurate for certain income levels and it’s the easiest way to do it if you qualify. If need more than that then you can start using that Google fu you have been training so hard at all your life.
I’ve used H&R Block Taxcut for 20 years and it works great. You can also probably get it on the cheap, just do a search for it on slickdeals.net.
One way to find providers is to go to your states tax site and see who supports your state. This list is often a lot shorter list. The ones I would look at in general sorted by decreasing popularity of their web site last year:
- TurboTax. 52%.
- H&R Block. 31%.
- FreeTaxUSA. 8%.
- TaxAct. 5%.
- TaxSlayer. 2.4%.
- OLT.com. 0.58%.
- 1040.com. 0.26%.
The % numbers are really just relative website popularity of the options I listed at a point in time. As I said before, I favor FreeTaxUSA. Interesting they can import from TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, TaxSlayer, CashApp, and OLT so they must consider those their major competitors. Also note that I believe the same company that is behind FreeTaxUSA also markets under TaxHawk and Express1040.com.
TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer tend to be the high end products in decreasing popularity and price. The first three tend to be somewhat similar pricing, and TaxSlayer a bit cheaper. FreeTaxUSA, OLT, and 1040.com tend to be the lower end offerings again in order of decreasing web site popularity though not always decreasing price. FreeTaxUSA appears to be the low end market leader.
I have not used all of these but I have used FreeTaxUSA and TaxAct. Both were fine. We finally ditched TaxAct a few years ago due to rising prices and their stupid tiered pricing plans. FreeTaxUSA is just so much simpler then many of the other providers because it comes without most the marketing BS and it has a good price/value ratio.
Others, feel free to comment and make any corrections to what I have said.
