File Your Taxes For Free

I used to do turbotax.. then one year I had a $1000 lottery winner they dont let you file that without upgrading for 44.99
they dont tell you that until the end after you do everything.

www.Freetaxusa.com super easy even with non-standard income such as gas and oil royalties etc.
you get a few ads about upgrading but its very easy to hit no thanks.

I pay the 14.99 for state because I want them to stay in business. Otherwise for 20min I could copy everything into the state of ohio's tax website for free.
 
I have to file in two states, as I live in South Carolina and work in North Carolina.

Do you guys know if it will let you do two states? Probably $14.99 each?
 
RDY4WAR said:
I've used the IRS website for probably 10 years now. What I used to do was claimed married and 99 on the check so no income tax was withheld. I'd calculate what should have come out and put that amount in savings. Then come first of the year, I file accurately and pay what is owed, keeping the interest that money accrued throughout the year. Granted, it wasn't much, but better than giving the government an interest free loan.
Click to expand...
And you paid a penalty for doing that.
 
Urshurak776 said:
I have to file in two states, as I live in South Carolina and work in North Carolina.

Do you guys know if it will let you do two states? Probably $14.99 each?
Click to expand...
Yes, $14.99 per state. Will let you file both. I hate when bordering states don't have reciprocity agreements.
 
Filed my taxes on Cash app this year. Was the only completely free service I could find.

Most of the others wanted to charge me for state filing.
 
I'm a TT slave 🤣 been using it forever. Self-employed and the small overall cost of the software ($90) + state file ($20) + audi defense ($50) is worth it to me. About $160 all-in (I always buy it at Costco) and that's a deduction for me anyway so not really $160 and it's also nice to have the program to use for tax modelling/planning for the current year. Finally I can do/e-file my two sons' federal returns for free but I just print/mail their state (VA) because I'm not paying $20 ea for that as they either don't even need to file or get a v. small return. Funny, I remember going to the library to get my 1040EZ and filling it out by hand mailing it in back in the day. If you are a simple situation/W2 person no reason to pay for doing your taxes. I'm quite sure I could sit and do my 1040 old-school but what a pain in the butt and change for errors/missing something in my situation isn't worth it.
 
I used turbo tax for the first time ever this year as TaxAct (pointed to there by IRS as a free filing option) was a bit confusing when things get complicated in recent years.
I picked the correct category for our income and situation, but still got whacked part way in for an upcharge for some IRA movements.

I thought we were going to get nailed for taxes this year, but my wife smartly jacked up the withholding on the W-4. She retired in April of '23, and I have been retired since 2018 but deferred collecting SS until July '23. She started collecting in May. Got refunded a good but not excessive amount State (MA) and Fed, our effective tax rate was 2.1 percent.

One surprising adjustment was the Savers Credit. I was floored that you could get a bottom-line tax credit for just making tax deferred 401K employee contributions! Never seen this as we have been phased out of this deduction in the past years due to income threshold, but got 20% of $2000(capped) off the bottom line this year. 400 bucks. I'll take it.

Since we will be living on almost 100% SS benefit income in 2024, I anticipate that there will be no tax burden due to the over $31K Standard Deduction for Married filing jointly couples over 65. I used the free AARP tax calc for a simulation what if.

I don't want to waste a big Standard Deduction "gimmie", we can withdrawal up to $17,000 of Rollover IRA untaxed savings money tax free. Alternatively, you could perform a partial Roth conversion of this same amount free from tax. Important to get monies out of the tax bucket and monies where the Min Required Distribution will have a big tax impact when you hit your early 70's - we will be forced to withdrawal well over $75k annually - money that I likely won't need - and is of course considered income as it is in the pre-tax money bucket.

Below is a link to a free Fed Income Tax Calculator/estimator that is great for doing what-if scenarios of Tax burdens on moving money, Roth conversions and IRA withdrawals. It's quick and easy, just be aware, some entries are "hidden" notice the down arrows (caret) to expand fields.

www.aarp.org

1040 Calculator Estimates Your Federal Taxes

Use this calculator to estimate your total taxes as well as your tax refund or the amount you will owe in taxes.
www.aarp.org www.aarp.org
 
For personal income, I don't mind paying a hundred bucks for Fed and State as long as the software is decent and E-file is supported and easy. I don't want to have to babysit an accountant for personal tax filing. I would have to retain and gather and sort all the required Forms and docs anyhow. I also don't want to give out any retirement account passwords.

But, If you have a business, you likely best hire a good accountant I imagine.
 
Another vote for Free Tax USA. Mrs. Jimmy and I did ours today with Free Tax USA and it worked great, Federal filing really is free unless you want to buy one of the extra services near the end of filing. Maybe an hour after we filed I got an email and a text saying our return was accepted at the IRS. I think I read somewhere that Free Tax was not one of the services that got busted for overcharging people and selling data.
 
Rand said:
I used to do turbotax.. then one year I had a $1000 lottery winner they dont let you file that without upgrading for 44.99
they dont tell you that until the end after you do everything.
Click to expand...
It's a trap. If they did that to me I'd re-enter all my data on a competitor's platform just out of spite.
 
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