Online Tax Filing for Free

This year for the first time in about 5 years I did not purchase TurboTax to do my taxes. Why? Because this year I can file them online completely for free, and so can you! Just go to the IRS Web site and click on the link for Free File there. It then tells you which of the free services you can use. Some of them are free for everybody, and they just assume you will pay the extra $8-10 extra to file your state taxes through them too. However, since most state returns are pretty simple, you can just use the free federal on-line and do the state returns manually easily enough. If you feel uncertain sending all that information online, you can also grab federal tax preparation software completely free from TaxAct, which hopes you will at least e-file through them for $7.95 (or for free through the IRS link). In reality, paying $8-$10 to file both returns electronically is a pretty good deal, but I prefer going the completely cheap method myself.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I too filed for free for the first time in 5 years. I qualified for the free file because of my families pathetic income due to me now being a stay at home Mom. There are some perks for losing an income. Too many to list here. I have filed for 5 years using turbotax and it is completely safe and it doesn't make mistakes adding or subtracting. I live in WA State and we have no income tax, another plus.
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