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Going to give a +1 for FreeTaxUSA. Significantly cheaper than H&R Block and a user interface that is just as good. The large tax companies are engaging in regu
by beckingz 5y ago
Going to give a +1 for FreeTaxUSA. Significantly cheaper than H&R Block and a user interface that is just as good.
The large tax companies are engaging in regulatory capture and ought to be sidelined in favor of a healthy society.
- AviationAtom 5y agoFreeTaxUSA for more "complex" fillings (i.e. multiple states, advanced investments, etc.), otherwise save coin and just use Cash App Tax (formerly Credit Karma Tax.) P.S. Use FREETAXUSA 10 for 10% off, and go through TopCashback for cashback
- usrn 5y agoOr just use free form filler. Especially if all you have is a W-2 and maybe some stock sales there's no reason not to do it yourself.
- ThatPlayer 5y agoI used FreeTaxUSA for the first time this year and liked it, but am thinking I will not be able to do it next year because they don't support more niche state form that I want. Other than that, I just have 1099 and W-2 so it isn't even that complicated. They support the federal version, and did leave them a message, so we'll see next year.
- akvadrako 5y agoOLT is another good option.
- drchiu 5y agoAnd not just them, but accounting professional groups as well.
- linsomniac 5y agoThis is my first year filing with FreeTaxUSA and I'm quite happy with them. I bought the upgrade version, it was like $6 or $7, and then state was $14 on top of that. Quite happy with them. One downside, because I had some investment sales this year, and they would only let me enter summarized information, I have to print, complete, and mail a form with the itemized data. Thankfully, it isn't too large in my case.
- crazysim 5y agoI really hope FreeTaxUSA improves their investment sales stuff, maybe with import capabilities or something. If you go for the unsummarized information, you don't have to mail anything. Unfortunately, you gave to go through a ton of screens and enter each trade by hand.
- ghoward 5y agoI have a relative that works for FreeTaxUSA. I'll let her know about your request. Edit: my relative says that it's already on the TODO list, but it takes a while with all of the other things they have to do. Edit: sanitized personal information because I'm stupid.
- MobileVet 5y ago+1 for the import. Even if you only do a couple trades a year it can be annoying to type that in. If your broker does a LOT of trading, it is not possible to use FreeTaxUSA. I LOVE the company and the product though, please pass along kudos. what a breadth of fresh air after years of using Turbo Tax. I now tell EVERYONE I know to use them.
- ghoward 5y agoCool, thank you! Your +1 and kudos have been passed along.
- selykg 5y agoAnother request for better investment input. It was really bad for me this year. I suffered through it but improvements here would be super welcome. I paid for the deluxe stuff even though I didn’t need it just to put money into the bucket to hopefully improve things.
- ghoward 5y agoI have passed your +1 along. Thank you for putting your money where your mouth is. However, I worry that the reason they haven't done it is because of lack of time. They spend a lot of time on finding and stopping fraud. If they didn't need to do that, I'm sure it would get done faster.
- jonny_eh 5y agoI'd give a +1 for "Cash App Taxes" (formerly Credit Karma Tax), which is totally free and has a decent enough web-based UI.
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoInterestingly, Cash App Taxes was sold to Square just before Credit Karma was acquired by Intuit: https://finovate.com/square-takes-on-taxes-as-justice-oks-intuit-credit-karma-acquisition/ https://finovate.com/square-takes-on-taxes-as-justice-oks-in...
- jxramos 5y agoWow, I wonder if that’s a sure route to start a competitor company, develop it a bit, and expect a sure buyer down the road? Would be a pretty funny game of whak-a-mole for them to be playing to keep the competitive landscape mowed.
- sngz 5y agoit was required by regulators for them to sell it off in order for intuit to acquire credit karma
- ezfe 5y agoWell, Cash App is part of Square
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jetrink 5y agoThey do force you to prove you have their app installed on your phone to use it, though installing it and uninstalling it afterward isn't that much of a hassle.
- mardifoufs 5y agoThat looks pretty similar to Wealthsimple Tax (formerly simpletax) that we have here in Canada, which I also recommend. I used to hate dealing with the shady tax software we have here in canada and as always we had even less options than you guys have in the US, so simpletax was a gamechanger
- vsskanth 5y agoYeah FreeTaxUSA is amazing. They organize their UI in income and deduction sections labeled with the form name so it's easy to link them to whatever forms you get from various sources. Took me a couple hours to file my taxes in a single sitting even though I had like 5 different types of forms to put in (W2s, HSA, 1099-DIV, 1099R, DCFSA). All this for like $13.50 federal and state filed online. Can't get cheaper than this. I love how they ask you again if you enter something that's "not common" in case you misunderstood what something is for.
- deathanatos 5y agoOne of the big points in the article, and the complaint against TurboTax, is that they're positioning their product as "free", when it isn't. And here is this subthread, recommending "FreeTaxUSA" … for $13.50+state. It might be cheaper, better quality, or better quality/price … perhaps. But is this not exactly the same thing? (Perhaps with less advertising, e.g., not running a commercial to millions of people repeating "free" a gajillion times.)
- FireBy2024 5y agoAgreed. Have been using it for 3 years and user experience is better than TurboTax.
- pc86 5y agoSad to hear about this after having paid $200-some for federal and two state returns last night, but I've already set a reminder to use them next year.
- theonething 5y agosame story here. Next year!
- beckingz 5y agoThis is why I posted the comment! Got burned last year and had such a low-pain experience this year that I felt the need to share this option.
- neapolisbeach 5y agoI used FreeTaxUSA this year to file and was happy with them except for a pretty dark pattern. If you google "FreeTaxUSA" and log-in that way, it'll change your free-file account to a paid account and there is no way to change it back. To free-file with them, you need to always log in using the special IRS link. I thought this was pretty annoying, especially as there's no way for customer service to change it back. Their recommendation was to make a new account and re-enter all my tax info.
- selykg 5y agoI did not have that experience. I went directly to the site and my federal was free. State was $15 or whatever it was. I did not use the IRS link.
- ezfe 5y agoFederal return is always free
- deathanatos 5y agoYou say it's "always free", but a cousin comment in this thread a few levels up claims it as "$13.50".
- kaitai 5y agoBut this is false. Go check it yourself: federal efile through Freetaxusa is free. I did it last night.
- deathanatos 5y agoI've already filed for the year, so it's too late for me to check it that way. Or, unless you're saying I should believe the marketing, but again, we're in a thread about the marketing from companies in that industry being false…
- 5y ago
- irrational 5y agoYes, FreeTaxUSA is terrific. I have fairly complex taxes and I've never had an issue with FreeTaxUSA.
- mynameisash 5y agoI've never heard of FreeTaxUSA, but with my tax situation this year, I'm probably going to look for something else next year. In short, my awesome tax guy retired, and the new people to whom he referred his clients ended up being less-communicative and more expensive ($750 vs $400). I was okay paying my tax guy for his amazing services, but I'm not going to pay exorbitant fees for crap service. My concern is that my tax situation, while not extreme, is not exactly simple. How well does something like FreeTaxUSA deal with small businesses (K1), part-time employment (1099?), stock awards and ESPP, and so on? If I can do my taxes in a day and be confident that I don't severely screw anything up, I'll totally go with that next year.
- outworlder 5y agoI believe it handles all that. Now if you do a lot of stock trading, that's seems to be a problem. Not that it can't do it, but in the amount of data entry that has to be done.
- dmoy 5y agoYou just input summaries (like two per broker max) and then mail in your 1099 or w/e to the IRS. Doesn't take that long at all
- bombcar 5y agoAnother reason to stick to simple index funds, and if you want to play stocks do it in a tax privileged account so you don’t have to bother with the paperwork.
- ThunderSizzle 5y agoI learned that the hard way. A few non-IRA investments become very annoying to file after a couple years. The current tax system is absolute garbage.
- ryandrake 5y agoThis has always been my excuse for not trying FreeTaxUSA. I figured it was only for people who have extremely simple 1040 returns + a few stocks or interest. My federal return is 20 pages long, including schedules 2, 3, B, D, Form 8606's, 8889 and on and on and on. I've always been afraid I'll get 85% through and realize I need a more expensive tax prep software to file everything I need to file--and then have to go back to TaxAct and re-type everything anyway.
- ddoolin 5y agoI run a pass-through entity (S Corp) and also have investment sales to list and I've been using FreeTaxUSA for three years now. I don't think I've paid for federal yet and state (single, CA) is always $15. I used to pay at least $60 for TurboTax for many years prior.
- sfteus 5y agoI don't have a crazy tax situation, just some freelancing, so I usually used freefillableforms.com because I didn't want to pay for TurboTax. For some reason it errored out when submitting this year and would not let me re-submit it, so I had to use an alternative. Ended up using FreeTaxUSA and was pleasantly surprised. Was way easier to enter all my info in than TurboTax, and pulled up the same refund amount. I don't see why I would want to use TurboTax when the free alternative is free and easier to use.