Thursday, March 5, 2009

Turbo Tax- Free E file???

Most of my life I have filed my own taxes. I first started with the 1040ez tax forms, where I filled them out on paper and filed them by mail. It was all very simple, since my income was low and I didn't have to do deductions. There was a couple of years recently when my income was higher that I went to someone to prepare my taxes for me. But for the most part, besides those two years, I have been using the Turbo Tax online version to prepare my taxes. I remember back when I first started, that using the software was actually free. And I remember saying to myself that they were going to get the users "hooked", and then start charging for their service. I think they charged fees last year, but definitely this year there are fees associated with using Turbo Tax. I think the catch is that you can actually use their software for free. The catch is when you want to actually file with the IRS. That's when they start to charge. Also if you decide to deposit your refund in your bank, they have another charge. At any rate, it still cost me around $100 to e file my taxes and to get the refund deposited directly in my checking account.They "get you" because you have already taken the effort to go through their whole process and you just want to get it over with by that point, so you go ahead and pay.What gets me is that if you to the federal governments IRS page to free tax preparer software, Turbo Tax is plainly listed as free. Besides the, lol, inconvenience of having to pay for their services , it has been great! The software is easy to use and it asks you tons of questions to figure out your deductions, how to file, and what refund you will receive or what amount you will owe the IRS. Plus it is able to import some information from previous years filings, so that you do not have to reenter that info. Now the dilemma! If they are charging, are they better than any other tax service out there?

No comments:

Post a Comment