I just completed my 2018 taxes and used online tax preparations on HR&Block and TurboTax. You can file your taxes for free on HR&Block, but have to pay for the same thing on TurboTax. I have spent roughly about 6 hours to understand my taxes, and the more I sat down and went through it all, over and over again, I started to see what goes where. My tax situation is not that complicated from the millions of people out there, but hopefully what I have learned, and people in my situation, can use this information to file your taxes.
Here are some details about my tax situation:
-I live in one state, but work in another.
-I have student loans
-I have 1099-INT forms from bank interest around $208 received.
-I rent
Not that complicated, however trying to understand taxes did frustrate me, but I got through it.
**Turbo Tax**
I have been using TurboTax for about 3 years. This will be my third and possibly last year I will use them. When I first used TurboTax, I was invited by a friend saying, "It is so easy to do your taxes!" Before this I was going through an at-home-tax preparer in my state, where I learned about him from my workplace online classifieds. He was good to the point that he apparently had photographic memory of everyone's tax information, email communication, and can remember last years taxes, which was both scary, but impressive. I was paying him about $60, but the reason I stopped going to him was because he was somewhat out of the way to get to him, and I did not feel I was getting the full amount of tax returns from him. Nothing against the guy, it was just that he lived far and I was suspicious of the tax information, but as I learn now it was me that was the problem.
I started using TurboTax to try to get the most of the tax returns, and it provided a good way to understand how taxes are done. The first year, I received slightly more, than I did the year before. However, I paid more to TurboTax because I was living in one state, but worked in another. The previous year I was working in the same state, so I only received one state income state. But the job recently made me move to another state, and so I received two.
For the first two years of TurboTax, I paid around $90-$120 for preparing the taxes. This was even with a discount, but only on the Federal returns. Since I had two states returns I was paying like $45 each on the state returns. At the time, I did not care because I just wanted it to get out of the way, and the ease of use TurboTax made it that simple.
This year, I am in that mode to penny pinch everything and throwing money to pay off my student loans, as quickly as possible. I received an email to do my federal returns for like $29.99. Normal price is like $60, for federal only. I'm thinking, "okay, that is cheap." Then suddenly, when I completed everything, and reach the end with federal and state taxes, my total was like $120 for preparing my taxes. (Mind you, my one state income refund was only $130, so I would only be getting like $10 from my state income tax refund.) I'm thinking "no way I am going to pay for this!" So, I only did the federal, which was the $29.99 only. This was TurboTax Deluxe.
After that, I learned there was a free edition of TurboTax, and I can just get free state tax returns. Sad to say, the "free" edition, is a joke to begin with on TurboTax. My tax situation was too complicated for TurboTax "Free" Edition to comprehend. The free edition of TB, will not file taxes if you have 1099-INT or students loans. These tax incentives are NOT included in TurboTax Free Edition. When you complete the entire thing, you will not be able e-file because your student loans are on a Schedule 1 Form, and you cannot removed this without affecting your state income taxes. For example, in my case, if I removed the forms of both 1099-INT and Schedule 1 forms, your state income refund would be only $1. And, I believe, this $1 came from a 1099-G form which I overpaid taxes in 2017! Or, from something on my W-2 form, I really don't know why only $1. So, you cannot file unless you have that type of situation where you do not have any of those things. TurboTax Deluxe version can do all that, however you will pay for your state income taxes separately, unless it is noted in the product for both "Federal + State", but even that is dubious wording from what I have been reading in forums.
Pro:
-Easy to use
-Convenient for both "Free" edition and Deluxe
Cons:
-Expensive (Deluxe Only)
-Free edition will not do Student Loans or 1099-INT if you have them
-Have to pay for Federal and State separately (Deluxe)
I will not be using TurboTax for next years taxes, as it is too expensive to do them, for what they are worth. Yeah, it is way easy to use, but paying $120, in my situation, is unrealistic to me.
**HR&Block**
HR&B is very similar to TurboTax, to the point that I believe they have been trading developers for years. The layout, the questions, and other aspects of the online suite are very similar. I found out about doing free tax preparers through [IRS.gov](https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/), and one other [site](https://christianpf.com/free-state-income-tax-filing-online/) to help me try to get my state tax returns for free. At first, I was researching on how I can complete them myself, but IRS, and some other researched sites, pointed me to go to HR&Block. Ok, round 4, or was it 5, times I went through my taxes. HR&Block will do everything for free, provided that you are under the $66,000 income threshold, which I am below that limit. Anything higher than that and you are going to pay HR&B, find another CPA, or better yet, do them yourself. Either way, you are going to pay money, or time.
The process was seamless and very similar to TurboTax. It did not complain about my student loans or 1099-INT, which I have multiples of. If I had to say, I completed my taxes within about an hour and a half, but I only breezed through that since I have been familiar with what to enter from TurboTax. Once everything was done, I paid nothing to HR-Block to prepare my taxes. Saved the PDF, and printed and everything seems to be in order.
Pros:
-Free, as long you are below the $66k income bracket.
-Easy to use and similar to TurboTax
Cons"
-May have slightly different question wording
-You may have to enter everything manually
I believe I will use this again for next, unless they stop allowing free preparations for taxes, or change the income amount, I don't know, but so far, I like what I see, and I paid nothing to them.
All in all, I paid the $29.99 to TurboTax, but if I sat back and researched more, I would have saved those $30. But, what can you do, hopefully this information may help people who are in the process to complete their taxes. If you are in a similar tax situation, like me, this may help you get your taxes done for free. I am only writing this because I am angry that I spent the $30 and could have done all this for free, and saved my sanity. I implore people to also read this [Vox](https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320386/turbotax-boycott-lobbying-tax-filing-season-tax-day-april-15) article about both HR&Block and TurboTax. I really hope that my experience going through this can help you get your taxes done for free.
Submitted March 27, 2019 at 03:39AM by Rexonial https://ift.tt/2usbceB
