FWIW, FreeTaxUSA[0] is much cheaper than Intuit and has worked great for me the past few years. I find it slightly easier than TurboTax, in fact.
Still, I kind of feel annoyed that I have to pay any amount of money to do something legally required of me to avoid going to jail. I think the IRS should provide a free option for filing, and TurboTax/FreeTaxUSA/Jackson Hewitt would be forced to provide a better service than "the bare minimum".
It takes longer to do my taxes via the web forms than it did by hand (which says just how bad the UI of tax prep is!), but it saves me from human mistakes.
Note that the ISR already has all the information they need to do my taxes for me. They just don't do them.
Not me! FreeFillableForms is apparently the last piece of software in the western world that doesn’t save your progress as you go. I found that out the hard way about three days ago and immediately switched to freetaxusa.
To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.
As a user, how do you know that the tax software you are using was "properly written"?
It's basically backed by the IRS and implemented by Intuit et al, but appears independent.
It works a little better every year, but you do still have to manually carry over some numbers from form to form.
I've been using it for the last 8 years at least. I don't love it to death, but if it wasn't available I'd do my own paper forms anyway.
I'm very glad that the IRS is going to be making something that's more comparable to turbotax now.
Glad a digital equivalent to paper forms exists, the US tax code is far less hellish than I previously believed.
If you are a typical tech employee and have highish income, incentive stock options, interest, dividends, capital gains, etc. don't think you can use freefillableforms to do your taxes in a couple hours.
Takes me about 2 hours on ffff ....
.. mostly because I've done my own taxes for the whole 34 years I've lived in the USA (including the first year when I got the US government to pay me the excess of what I'd paid the UK government, and the year I paid taxes on amzn stock that exceeded everything I had ever earned until that time).
This stuff is not as complicated as people make out, though I would concede that it is likely easier for a software developer-type person than a personal grooming specialist or firefighter. There's a whole industry out there predicated on the idea that you can't do this yourself.