Tax Software

[RadMoneyMD]

For those of you who do your own taxes, which tax software do you use/recommend? Turbo tax seems like the best but also the most expensive.

I have used a CPA the past few years but want to do my taxes myself this year.  All of my income is 1099 and I plan to itemize deductions and I have a home office.

Thanks!

[DMFA]

I get H&R Block TaxCut Premium free through the military. Works great, includes Schedule C, auto-fills form 8606, and some more great features. I probably wouldn't pay $60 for it, though.

I have some friends using Credit Karma this year. I'm waiting for them to tell me how it went.

[Lithium]

I do okay with Free Tax USA, but I am just a W2 employee.  I don't pay the ~$12 for the state return and usually just do that on paper.

[TotallyBroke]

I normally use H&R Block, but this year have decided to do them all myself on paper.

I'm also one of those guys that companies like HRB & TT dislike because I kinda went through it all with them online to see what kind of numbers they were getting.  For my taxes, I'd rather not pay $100+ to file federal and 2 state returns.  Plus, I've learned a lot about how to reduce my tax burden by doing them on paper.

[WallStreetPhysician]

RadMoneyMD wrote:

For those of you who do your own taxes, which tax software do you use/recommend? Turbo tax seems like the best but also the most expensive.

I have used a CPA the past few years but want to do my taxes myself this year.  All of my income is 1099 and I plan to itemize deductions and I have a home office.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'm an H&R Block guy now, although I used to use Turbotax.  Turbotax is just so expensive if you want support for your investments.  H&R block gets the job done for much less.

A trick I use is to follow the Turbotax or H&R Block software on camelcamelcamel.com and set a price alert which will e-mail you when the software goes on sale.  I've been able to save a few bucks this way. Look up last year's version for an idea of what price to set the alert.

[Craigy]

I borrow my mother-in-law's copy of turbotax every year

They only give you one state, so I have to file my state taxes myself, but that usually takes just a few minutes.

Before that I also used turbotax and either paid some small fee or it was free maybe one year with a 1040ez.  One year I used freefillableforms and manually entered in all my stuff, for some reason turbotax couldn't handle a 1099R when I had a distribution from a Roth IRA.

Interested in how Credit Karma works out and if it's truly free as advertised or if you have to slog through a ton of adverts.

[TheHappyPhilosopher]

Been using turbotax for years, never had a problem with it. Costco usually has good deals on it.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

The College Investor did a comparison of the different programs offered by several popular software companies.

Comparing Prices of Turbotax, H&R Block, and TaxAct.

[StuRedman]

I was looking into this, haven't done my taxes for a few years.  USAA has 20$ off for members on turbotax, free if you are active.

[StarTrekDoc]

Been on TurboTax since 1996. Use it yearly for our own and LLC business. Consist and predictable product. Of course we share with rest of extended family too. ?

Costco is routinely cheapest standalone . Bundle rebates when you upgrade quicken every few years

[WallStreetPhysician]

Amazon is currently offering H&R block deluxe with state for $18.99. I expect that this will be the lowest price of the season. I put an affiliate link on my blog if you want to support me, but here's the direct link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MDO3TEG/

[Update 2/7/17: Deal is gone. Price is now $26.99. You should be able to get a better price than this sometime before April 15.]