As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again (from paying a small fortune to file my taxes)!

I just completed my taxes.  I owe $62.00 to the Feds, and $597.00 to State.  (Ouch!  Well, in Pennsylvania it’s a flat 3% tax rate and I underestimated my quarterly tax payments.)

But I’m still rubbing my hands together in glee:  for the first time in years, I WAS ABLE TO PREPARE AND E-FILE BOTH MY FEDERAL & STATE TAX RETURNS FOR FREE.

Last year when I was sweating over my taxes, I was using the online edition of Turbotax Premier.  At the final review phase, I was checking all my numbers and something felt amiss.  I pulled out my taxes from the year prior, and yep—I was missing an 8606 Form (for reporting a Roth conversion from my IRA).  

When I called Turbotax, I got a man who didn’t have a clue what I was talking about and switched me to his supervisor, a cheerful woman who insisted the form was just a fomality.  I explained to her that no, it wasn’t; I HAD to file the 8606 form to keep from getting hit with a 10% early withdrawal penalty.  She suggested I pick one up from the Post office, fill it out myself and snail-mail it separately “if it would help me sleep better”.

This is what I was paying $139.00 for??

A couple days after all was said & done, I got another call from Turbotax, a cross-sounding woman who said the form WAS required, and now available for e-file.  After I told her I already took care of it, she said “What I want to know is, WHY is someone at your income level using our most expensive software?  We offer a free version of Turbotax right on our website, Mr. Morris.”

I told her it’s for ‘simple’ taxes only.  I tried using it before, but got a pop-up screen saying my taxes were too complex to qualify for free filing and I’d have to pay for the Premier version.   She said “Well, you’re still paying too much—if you purchase the DELUXE next year, you’ll save $30.00.” 

I told her I’d love to save thirty bucks, but the deluxe version didn’t process investment transactions.  She told me I was wrong, but she’d check.  She came back and said the online deluxe didn’t, but the CD deluxe did.  (Why is there a difference?)  I told her I couldn’t use the CD Deluxe as I didn’t have a working CD drive on my computer.  She asked me if I had a COSTCO membership.  I said no and c’mon, enough.

I knew their products better than they did!  As God is my witness, I’d never pay for Turbotax again!

And now, a year later (and wondering how I’d be filing my taxes this year) I caught a spokesperson from the IRS on CNBC a couple days ago, explaining why the government didn’t supply their own tax software products.  He said the IRS had an agreement with tax preparation companies that they wouldn’t supply free software if H&R Block, Turbotax & others did.  “You just have to go thru the IRS website to get access to them.”

I went to IRS.gov, clicked on “Do your Taxes for Free”, selected good ol’ Turbotax from the list of available suppliers, and instead of that screen above, got this one:

When I clicked to begin, it asked if I filed with Turbotax last year:  I said yes and they pulled all the information up.  “Any changes to your personal information, Douglas?”  Nope.  When it asked if I had any investments, I thought here’s where I get the boot and said “Yep, I have a 1099-R form, a 1099-F, a 1099-B, a 1099-DIV…“

It let me know my 1099s were found online & imported.  Nice!  A few questions later, it announced we were done, and e-filing for both Federal & State were completed.  Really??  It never asked for my credit card information, or recommended I upgrade or buy additional audit products.  It worked just the same as Turbotax Premier, without all the hassle.

Well, I still owe that small bundle to the Fed & State—and in the last couple weeks my stock portfolio has lost around 70K in value, thanks to Trump’s coronavirus (yes, I’m blaming him).  But I still saved $139.00 filing my taxes!

Life is good.