IRS to test a free Direct File program that may compete with tax prep giants

Individual tax filers, regardless of income, can use IRS Free File to electronically request an automatic tax-filing extension. Since Intuit has exited the IRS Free File program, we no longer offer IRS Free File Program delivered by TurboTax, formerly known as TurboTax Free File Program and TurboTax Freedom Edition. The Commissioner of the Revenue or the City of Fairfax are not responsible for the contents of any off-site pages referenced through links. Specific details regarding a document should be directed to the appropriate organization and not to the Commissioner of the Revenue, the City of Fairfax or any of its employees. If you fall into any of the above situations, you’ll have to file your tax return by mail for this year.

We previously recommended IRS Free File tax software provided by Intuit TurboTax. Currently, the IRS offers its Free File service through seven providers, including OLT and FileYourTaxes.com, which we do not recommend. But since we haven’t tried them all yet, we don’t feel comfortable recommending any of them. The version of MyFreeTaxes by United Way that we recommend runs on TaxSlayer’s platform, and it has a free filing tier for anyone who makes less than $73,000 a year. (IRS Free File also has a partnership with TaxSlayer itself, but that offering is restricted to individuals who make $60,000 or less and are age 57 or younger.) But we don’t particularly like TaxSlayer’s interface.

POPULAR FOR TAX PROS

Like TurboTax, H&R Block uses its interview prompts to guide you to the appropriate forms, but it sometimes doesn’t assign all of the right ones. For example, even though our fake filer had medical expenses that qualified them for the itemized deduction, H&R Block didn’t direct us to the Schedule A form to itemize their expenses. We had to scroll to the bottom of the page, select “Add deduction,” and track down the appropriate form. For this reason, we recommend always manually reviewing the list of form choices before confirming you’re finished with each section of your return. Kaitlyn Wells is a senior staff writer covering the intersection of home office, productivity, and technology. She’s also written about personal finance topics for The Simple Dollar, MarketWatch, MSNMoney, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

But the IRS isn’t addressing those sorts of tricks with its new restrictions, so it’s quite possible Intuit and other tax prep companies will have plenty of other ways to make their money. The IRS Free File program is a public-private partnership between the agency and the Free File Alliance, a group of tax preparation companies with online software such as TurboTax, TaxAct, FreeTaxUSA and more. Americans with adjusted gross income of less than $72,000 are eligible to use the program to file federal taxes with no cost.

Popular Forms & Instructions

We decided to leave the fictional filer to consult their fictional tax professional instead. Your information is protected from any unauthorized access while it is sent to the https://turbo-tax.org/irs-free-file-program-delivered-by-turbotax/ IRS. Free File partner companies may not disclose or use tax return information for purposes other than tax return preparation without your informed and voluntary consent.

• To securely send Justin documents or other files online, visit our SecureDrop page or reach him through one of the methods below.
• If you freelance or own a business, if you manage rental property, or if you have more complex investments than interest or dividend payouts, you can save yourself time and stress by finding a good tax professional.
• The large buttons and fonts are also more accessible to tax filers than those in competing software; we found that the not-so-user-friendly design of other apps made an already-painful task even more painful.
• (Some participating companies will even process your state return.) Close to 70% of taxpayers qualify for Free File, according to the IRS.

TurboTax said it processed 17 million free tax filings last season; of that, only 3 million came through the Free File program. You’ll only need your email address and a phone number to get started. If you don’t have your forms on hand, you can auto-import your info from your W–2s or 1099s directly from more than a million participating employers and financial institutions.

More from Money:

It asks the right questions (no more and no fewer than are needed), in contrast with other apps, which tend to ask for irrelevant details. Mississippi allows returns to be filed on-line using your home computer and an Electronic Transmitter Service/On-Line Service Provider. The following is a list of those companies intending to provide on-line electronic filing of Mississippi Individual Income Tax Returns for tax year 2022​. The list starts with those companies that are offering free or reduced fee e-file for Mississippi taxpayers. Please visit each site to determine if you qualify for one of these programs. Use the IRS Free File Online Lookup Tool to direct you to the offers you qualify for based on your adjusted gross income, filing status, age, state of residence, eligibility for the earned income tax credit and military status.

If you’ve already received a letter from the IRS for a return you filed with TurboTax, please review our Audit Support Guarantee for instructions on how to receive FREE step–by–step audit guidance and the option to connect with an expert. We also offer full audit representation for an additional fee with TurboTax Audit Defense. Learn how you can file your federal return with a top tax-prep company at no charge. “Instead, many used a commercial website outside of the program, which may have charged taxpayers,” its report noted.

The best free software if you paid student loan interest or college tuition

Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time). In November 2022, The Markup found that several companies, including TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and H&R Block, sent non-tax-return information to third-party companies like Meta and Google. In response to the article, H&R Block removed the offending pixel code that sent this data. But it’s a clear example of how difficult it is to keep track of what tax-prep services are doing. There’s so much data-sharing wiggle room in most privacy policies—including those from H&R Block and TurboTax—that it’s difficult to predict how they’ll be interpreted. With a tax professional, you don’t have to do form-by-form price comparisons or hope that you fit inside an income or age cap—they’ll take whatever you have, and most are clear up-front about what they’ll charge based on your specific situation.

You can avoid surprises and see which forms are available for each version of TurboTax on its comparison page. H&R Block isn’t as easy to use as our top pick, but it lets you claim college tuition https://turbo-tax.org/ and student loan interest deductions for free. If your taxes are more complex, including items like unemployment income, stock sales or rental properties, you’ll likely have to upgrade.

Beyond free federal e-file: What about free tax prep?

They walked us through questions such as how to verify that we were getting all the right credits and why TurboTax estimated a lower refund than a different tax app did. Since tax time can be stressful for even the most organized people, in our testing we favored tax-preparation software that offered reassuring guidance throughout the filing process. Unlike the experience with other tax software, which can make you feel like you’re being interviewed by someone who forgets your answers as soon as you provide them, using TurboTax feels like collaborating with a professional.

• This means you need to be vigilant as you click through each screen, in order to avoid falling for the unnecessary upsell.
• Your information is protected from any unauthorized access while it is sent to the IRS.
• Taxpayers who need to file Schedules C, D, or E will be charged on the MyFreeTaxes.com website.
• “Instead, many used a commercial website outside of the program, which may have charged taxpayers,” its report noted.

You may be eligible for Free File using one of the software providers below, if your federal adjusted gross income (AGI) was $73,000 or less. The Department provides this list of software vendors offering electronic filing solutions. The Department is not affiliated with any software companies, does not endorse any products, and is not responsible for software vendors’ products or errors that may occur in them.

The average cost of professional tax preparation can be anywhere from $220 for a simple return with just Form 1040 to well over $1,000 for more-complex returns, like those that involve Form 1120S. In recent years, tax laws have undergone major revisions that could drastically affect the returns of people who have complicated tax situations. If your tax needs take you beyond what TurboTax Deluxe can handle, instead of upgrading to TurboTax Premier or Self-Employed, you should seriously consider hiring a tax professional or getting live help from an IRS-certified volunteer, if you qualify. If your adjusted gross income is $73,000 or less, you’re eligible for free guided tax prep from options like Tax Slayer, FileYourTaxes.com and TaxAct. If your income exceeds that, you qualify for free fillable forms (but you’ll have to actually file them on your own).