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TurboTax online

I think it's the same service (provided by Intuit), but other students or such like myself who have an AGI of $27,000 or less can go to taxfreedom.com and do their federal taxes online for free. The program this year is actually quite good from both a technical and interface point of view.

For state income, some states let you do free filing online via their own websites (like UT), but AL, AR, AZ, GA, ID, IA, KY, MA, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NY, ND, NC, OK, OR, RI, VT, and WV are all members of the Free File Alliance, and you can usually file taxes in these states for free online.

I'm a poor student, so my only goal is to get my refund back as fast as possible. Granted, my return is simple, but it took only 6 days last year from submission to direct deposit. In any case, I've found that there's no reason not to file online, especially if it's free.

I was listening to NPR a while ago and they were talking about how the IRS had some deal going on that you could do electronic filing for free. You can find all their free stuff here. As for sub7, I think you might want to return that copy of Turbo Tax and check this out. Turbo Tax Premier is only $29.99 from that site. Unless I'm missing something, there's no advantage to buying the software directly and there's definitely no advantage to buying the software at all unless your state has income tax, too.

No really...everyone qualifies.

http://www.taxfreedom.com/

Everyone else does not have to pay to do the online thing. In fact, for Federal no one has to pay. For state, many people can do their state taxes online for free too.

http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp

If you pay to do your taxes online, you're getting ripped off!

I almost did my taxes last year with H&R Block's free online form. It wasn't until the very end, after spending nearly an hour filling out forms, that they revealed that it is only free online filing for Federal taxes. They charge $19.95 (and up, depending on options) for filing state, even through their "free" program.

It really ticked me off, since I remembered filing my taxes for free in 2003 online. I dug around and finally remembered it wasn't through H&R Block, but Intuit. If you make less than a certain amount ($30-35k is the max, can't remember exactly), then you can file both Federal and State online for free. The catch: you'll have to dig forever to find the link to it on Intuit's page, you'll have better luck going straight to this url: http://www.taxfreedom.com.

Keep in mind they haven't updated this page yet for tax year 2004, it probably won't be updated until the end of this month.

http://www.taxfreedom.com/

Select taxpayers under a certain income, or with a student or military status, can use the TurboTax Web edition for free, with a free e-file for their federal return and (if their state participates in the program) one free state tax return.

http://taxfreedom.com/

For the masses out there that are students, you can use the web version of TurboTax for free (including filing, and some states are also free) if you are 22 or younger (or in the military, or over 62). Check here. I've used TurboTax for the Web for the last few years and it's very nice. Even if you don't qualify you can try it out for free, they don't charge you until you either print or e-file.

There are also other web-based places that have different qualifications for free filing (eg. income restrictions, etc.). Go to www.irs.gov and click on "Free File".

Or, for those who are poor students, or otherwise fairly poor, there's Intuit's Taxfreedom site. It won't become live for the 2003 season until mid-January 2004, but it's for those who have less than a certain AGI; in 2002, less than $27,000. It provides free federal and state filing, and since it's essentially Turbotax for the web, it can do most, if not all forms. It's even Mozilla friendly, or was last year. A good resource for those who need it.

Last year, the IRS was going to have e-file available on their website, open to the public and free of charge to those who made less than a minimum income of around $50,000 or so.

Well, Intuit freaked because they claimed that this practice would put the company out of business AND that the governmaent, by doing this, was monopolizing the practice of electronic filing.

The IRS conceded this and allowed Intuit to do the e-file thing on their web site but had to allow for people who made less than a certain income (lowered to $27,000) file for free. Intuit did this, and called it the "Tax Freedom Project". In theory this was perfect: not only did Intuit retain control of the tax e-file system AND the government saved money by not having to purchase/maintain the equipment to run this system. But Intuit, in all their deviousness, decided that they would like to make money, and they couldn't do that as easily if customers could file for free. So here's what they did: They put the huge "Do your taxes" link right on their web page, and buried the Tax Freedom link off to the right under much a smaller font size. Not only did this help to make finding the Tax Freedom Project harder to find, but in order to continue your taxes for free (one had to continue to allow time for the IRS to accept your e-filed return; generally around 72 hours or so) you had to click on another "Continue my return" link that was buried within the Tax Freedom Project page! Clicking on the "Continue my return" link on the Intuit main page then led to irrevrsible charges placed against you for filing. I consider myself somewhat computer-savvy and I fell for this and ended up paying $40.00 for taxes. A call to Intuit's customer service resulted in a "Yeah, well, you should've continued from the Tax Freedom Project page. There is nothing we can do."

Thus, I still won't use Intuit or Quicken anymore since they try so hard to make a penny. It's rediculous!

As you may or may not know, the IRS was going to allow people who made lass than a certain amount of money in 2002 file for free on their website. Intuit complained, citing that they would take a monetary hit because of the loss of people who would otherwise use their software.

So, an agreement of sorts was made: The IRS wouldn't have e-file on their website, but Intuit had to allow people who made less than $27,000 to file for free (see taxfreedom.com). So Intuit did this.

However, here comes the catch: In order to continue your return without paying, you have to click on a small link back at the taxfreedom website. Instead, when people return to turbotax.com, you are greeted with the "Continue your return" link. And guess what? the second you log back in to check the status of your return, you are billed for $30+!

Granted, Intuit does post a small piece of text on taxfreedom.com that states you must continue from this page, but how many people have actually done this? I feel like a fool for falling for Intuit's deception, so I won't be using their product anymore.

It's just so sad that a company has to stoop to such low levels to make a profit these days.

Intuit will let you use Turbotax for the web for Free as in beer and efile for free if you have a AGI of $27,000 or less, or can claim the earned income tax credit. That is state and fed forms and efileing.

what does this have to do with taxes?