Kate Furlong for Go Banking Rates writes: As the tax deadline draws near, you’re probably getting all of your tax paperwork in order so that you can file in time for the April 15 deadline. If you have a very complicated tax situation, it’s not a bad idea to hire an accountant to make sure that everything is done properly.
However, if your taxes are relatively straightforward or you feel confident doing them yourself and want to save some money, there are some great pieces of free tax software out there that can help you file your own taxes.
You’ve probably heard of TurboTax, TaxACT and H&R Block. They are all reputable products with similar functionalities, but if you’re unfamiliar with some of their capabilities, here are a few basic points about each.
1. TurboTax Review
TurboTax is great for novice and intermediate users alike, as it offers you the option to go through your taxes by answering questions or, if you prefer, you can navigate your own way through.
As you go along in your questionnaire, TurboTax points out unusual situations and flags issues that it sees. It also saves your information from past tax years which can be helpful to reference or to spot mistakes. Additionally, TurboTax has a forum of user-generated FAQs that can be very helpful in finding quick answers to questions.
At the end of the process, you can use the software to file both your state and federal returns and save a PDF of the returns to your computer for your own files.
The regular edition allows you to file your federal return for free while more complicated tax situations will require a paid upgrade to the Deluxe, Premier, or Home & Business editions. It costs money to file your state return ($27.99), but what’s nice is that the information that you input into your federal return easily transfers over.
2. TaxACT Review
TaxACT’s price is one of the main competitive advantages over the other tax services. TaxACT allows you to file your federal return for free but charges per state ($14.99); however, it has cheaper upgrade options than the others and the price of the state return is less than $14.99 when you use an upgraded federal version.
As with the other services, you can import data from your tax forms (W-2s or last year’s returns) easily and you are guided through different areas of your taxes via easy-to-answer questions or self-navigation.
3. H&R Block Review
H&R Block is a household name in the tax business; its main benefit is its “Best of Both” option that allows you to visit a physical office if you end up needing offline help with your taxes.
As with TurboTax and TaxACT, H&R Block offers a free version for the simplest of tax situations and then provides paid upgrades for more complicated situations. The service allows for free federal filing and charges a base rate of $27.99 per state filing.
Each of these three software choices are sound options for filing your own taxes; consider testing them all out at the start to see which interface you feel most comfortable with. Then you can decide which you’ll use to file your own taxes.
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