We’re rapidly approaching every American’s favorite time of year: The opportunity to file your federal and state taxes …
There are a wide variety of commercial apps and online services you can use to file your taxes electronically, with varying fees.
But if your adjusted gross income last year was under $73,000 – and there are no unusual complications in your filing requirements – you can use some of the biggest names in electronic tax filing for free.
We briefly mentioned the IRS Free File service last year, and CNET notes that it’s open to more than two-thirds of US taxpayers.
IRS Free File is a partnership between the IRS and seven of the country’s biggest online tax-prep companies. If your adjusted gross income last year was under $73,000, you can use Free File to process and submit a simple return for free […] Close to 70% of taxpayers qualify for Free File, according to the IRS.
Free File lets you file your federal taxes for free; whether or not the companies charge for filing your state taxes varies.
The service goes live tomorrow (if you access the website today, it will tell you it’s closed), and you’ll get a choice of providers.
Here are the instructions, courtesy of CNET:
1. Go to the IRS Free File website.
2. Click the “Use Free Guided Tax Preparation” button. Then hit “Start lookup tool” under IRS Free File Online Lookup Tool for help in finding the right product. You can also use the Browse All Offers tool to review each offer.
3. Select the best product.
4. Follow the links to the provider’s website to begin your tax return.
The IRS is also piloting an even simpler service which works like TurboTax.
The app promotes itself with the tagline “Snap, tap, done” as it lets you use your iPhone camera to take a photo of your W-2 form, and then automatically captures that information and loads it into the IRS tax return form. You can also begin the process on your phone, and then complete it on your Mac.
TurboTax typically costs around $100, but the IRS equivalent – called Direct File – will be free. You will, however, have to wait for the IRS to invite you to use that.
Photo by Amol Tyagi on Unsplash
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