I’m sure doing it manually is the safest, but perhaps there’s a least poison for software/services for filing US taxes. What do you recommend? (or, atleast, what do you recommend steering clear of)
I can’t vouch for freetaxusa.com enough. Please, if at all possible, don’t use the big tax software. They are almost 100% responsible for the U.S. not having an easy tax system like other countries.
not having an easy tax system like other countries
Which countries, please? Income tax forms are horrible everywhere I know about (which is like 5 countries, so not a huge sample, to be fair).
There are several countries out there where the government sends you your tax bill automatically. There aren’t dozens of forms to fill out. The tax system doesn’t have thousands of deductions for obscure one-off items. Our government knows exactly what we owe. Why do we have to fill out paperwork to tell them what we owe, then get in trouble when it’s wrong?
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-other-countries-use-return-free-filing
I can also vouch for FreeTaxUSA, I’ve compared it against a few major tax companies and at least for relatively simple stuff, they were totally identical results, and just as easy to use.
There are a few options for free filing based on income (generally, lower that $79k) here: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
And if you’re in one of 12 lucky states, there’s an IRS Direct File trial program:
Arizona
California
Florida
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Washington state
Wyoming
Like others said FreeTaxUSA. We use it and like it.
Just know one downside is that it does not do direct imports from financial firms or other data sources. You have to enter the data. Otherwise for individual taxes, it is pretty complete. It also does not do Form 1041 returns which is for Trusts and Estates as separate entities, that is under their own EINs. Most people do not need that.
Edit: Looks like this year a few imports have been added. One seems to be W-2 from PDF. The other is last year returns from some common other tax return providers. Not tried any of these. They already imported their own last year data.
Fuck turbo tax, that shit sucks don’t use it - can’t say enough bad things about it. I’ve used cash app to file for free for a few years now. I doubt their privacy policy is any good, but it works well and I’m not trying to fuck around with my taxes…
