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elektor

Are there any good resources for filing your own taxes?

I’ve always relied on family members and want to take a crack at it.

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There is an open source project:

http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/

Just noting it, not advising or recommending anything -- whether this is wise or not definitely depends on your own particular situation.

That's cool because the author has also updated it for the 2018 tax year. From their YouTube video it looks like it needs polishing from an aesthetic perspective but if it does the job and cuts out the middle man then it's good. I'll have to try it out this year.

A much better job would be an open source modern website that is updated by the community and supports both federal and state taxes, importing tax documents, and highly secure to ensure a strong middle finger to these overbearing companies.

Correction, it has been updated last for the 2017 tax year. His website says that by the end of Jan 2019 it will be updated for the 2018 tax year.

Just read the IRS instructions that come with the forms. I do my taxes by hand and don't find the instructions especially complicated or hard to read.

FYI, Credit Karma is providing free online tax filing regardless of your income.

In general, I think online tools become worth their cost when you are claiming mutliple deductions and have income from various sources across more than one state. Otherwise, the 1040EZ is where you should start.

There is only one form this year. There is no longer a 1040A or 1040EZ.

I don’t believe the 1040EZ exists anymore.

Correct. The 1040 has been redesigned to be as easy to fill out as the prior 1040EZ, IMHO.

just remember that credit karma makes all it's money from selling you credit cards... so by using them to fill out your taxes you give them all the info on your income info to further "personalize" these ads

More personalized ads seem to be a win-win situation. If I'm already seeing credit card ads I'd like to at least see ones that are relevant for me.

Are you certain that Intuit and others aren’t doing the same thing? That is, using your data to gain insights?

After logging in to TurboTax (for the first time in a tax year) it asks you if it can share your data with its parent company (Intuit). Declining works and doesn't have any impact on TurboTax. However, based on how the UI for that looks like it might not be obvious for some people that data-sharing is optional.

Well, it's good that your doing your homework on it first. Because, once you start using one, the cost of switching rises a bit because each year, they have youre last years info which comes in handy quite a bit: they can pre-fill out some of your stuff like addresses, employers, name, ssn, etc. Also, look for one that doesn't raise your rate once you start using it for a few years: some of them do that.

Just fill out form 1040, the IRS provides instruction booklet on how to fill it out. Both the form and the instructions are available on their website. Then use software (I reccomend taxhawk, don't overpay for turbotax) and compare the 1040 they generated with your manual 1040. If they match, great. If not, figure out why.

Have done MA's (now-defunct) free e-file and NY state's paper form.

Don't do it, it's a massive waste of time and energy and the chance for human error is massive. I only did mine because Oracle and ADP issued me a completely incorrect W2 and TurboTax doesn't let you submit it with incorrect wages reported.

Luckily though I got all my money back in like 2 months

Depends where you live.

In Canada there are free options to file your taxes, and ability to pull in last year/ current info if signing into your CRA account.

I used to use studiotax, but last year started using simpletax.

Essentially I sign in, and then sign into my cra account, it has all my info prepoluated.

I don't understand why the govt cant just file my taxes for me when they already have the info

Simply put, the IRS doesn't have the data access Hollywood makes it look like they have. There are timeframes for the Combined Annual Wage Reporting joint task force to have the data trickle downstream from SSA to IRS. It isn't immediately available to them which is why there is the so-called "PATH Act hold" that stops any returns claiming EITC or Additional Child Tax Credit from refunding out before February 15th each year now so at least some data is on-hand. As long as some payers & employers can still file income reporting forms on paper, they have an awfully long time after April 15th to get those documents in to IRS too.

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