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Comment by naftaliharris | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised the article and comments haven't mentioned CreditKarma's tax solution yet, which is (actually) free. [1] Presumably their strategy is to take the users and data they get from offering free tax filing and use them to advertise lending products. I think that's a sustainable and politically feasible way to get free tax filing, actually; I expect that in ~5 years Credit Karma will have eaten a big part of TurboTax and H&R Block's lunch.

[1] https://www.creditkarma.com/tax

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I have not used CreditKarma's tax product, but I've heard folks say that it calculates some things incorrectly. I think that's understandable for a brand new product, but I'd be cautious about using it this year if you don't (1) have a very simple return, (2) check their work against the IRS forms/instructions and/or (3) check against another product.

(For those who don't want to give TurboTax or H&R money, I've been quite pleased with FreeTaxUSA, which is like $12 for federal and state. It's a bit less user friendly, but plenty good enough if you have some understanding of taxes, and there are way fewer upsells and overpriced crap.)

> I have not used CreditKarma's tax product, but I've heard folks say that it calculates some things incorrectly.

Can anyone else attest to this? I am going to start doing my taxes soon (for the first time in my life) and CreditKarma seems like a good solution for me.

I did my tax return with CreditKarma and TaxAct. They came out almost identical. I filed with CreditKarma because it was free. They basically worked the same. It only took me about 10 extra minutes.

It also saved me about 1k since I had done my property taxes wrong. All in all I would say that CreditKarma was worth doing and I would use them again as long as they are free.

Side Note: I have used TurboTax and TaxAct in the past.

Take a look here for some issues: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=207092

TurboTax will let you do everything except file for free. You could enter your data on both sites, and if they match, file for free with Credit Karma.

>> You could enter your data on both sites, and if they match, file [... with the product that did the math correctly]

Square quotes mine. This should be standard practice for all tax filers using an online tool or downloadable application. In most cases you, as the taxed citizen, will be held liable for any mistakes on your return. Very few situations will find the tax software provider being legally at fault for an incorrect calculation. Protect your own ass(ets) by verifying your input with separate providers. If there any discrepancies, figure out why and file with the correct result. Do not try to "get away with" filing with the provider that is most in your favor without understanding the reason; from the point of view of your government, you might be filing a fraudulent tax return. Willful negligence of tax law is not a valid excuse in their eyes.

TurboTax found several thousand dollars for me in a fairly complicated tax situation that I was completely not expecting and would never have realized on my own. Even some CPAs I've talked to have said "oh, really?" They've bought some tremendous goodwill from me with that. I'm probably sticking with them forever.

This is the exact anecdote for why Intuit would want to keep tax law complicated.

How do you think carryover losses of subchapter S corporations should be handled to make them easier?

The idea is to make it easier for the average person. Those involved with subchapter S corporations are probably not amateurs and are not the target audience.

Taxes are easy for the average person. A basic 1040-A, and certainly 1040-EZ (these two cover most taxpayers), are not difficult to do on paper if you can read and have a little patience.

I'm not defending Intuit here, by the way. But most people don't need what they are selling.

You cannot itemize a 1040.

True, you need the full 1040 return for that, but most people don't have enough deductions to itemize -- that was my point. The average tax return is a 1040A or 1040EZ with the standard deduction. Those are easy.

> but most people don't have enough deductions to itemize

FWIW, $100k in NYC puts your state + city taxes well over the standard deduction.

I wasn't arguing against that. Rather against the conceit that my tax situation must be the result of people conspiring to keep things complicated, when the big thing (that got me thousands of dollars) was probably something that cannot really be simplified much further. Yet TT found it for me when lots of CPAs just didn't understand it.

In my mind move to a consumption tax with pre-bate (aka FairTax) and remove corporate income taxes altogether.

I have a moderately complicated tax situation. Own property. Some investments. Occasional AMT hit for options. TurboTax handles all of this well. I am happy to pay $100 where before I could easily spend ten times as much on a CPA. That said, they really should allow auto-file for people with simple returns.

Quite a few accountants that I know use TurboTax to file for their customers.

I haven't used CreditKarma's tax product either so I can't speak to its accuracy, but from my understanding they didn't build their own product, they acquired a company called AFJC which has been in the online tax space for a while.

I tried both CreditKarma and TurboTax this year.

Credit Karma missed some things in my NJ state return that would have cost me a couple hundred dollars. There didn't appear to be any way for me to manually include a correction, so I ended up filing with TurboTax (free version).

This wasn't even a particularly esoteric exemption, I expect it would have come up with anyone who worked for two different companies in the same year. Aside from that, I'm a very standard case.

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/njit16.shtml

I tried to use their product but fell into a fringe case where I could claim my spouse as an exemption. It's literally one box and a calculation on a tax form, but their support told me I was basically SOL.

It's a nice product from a UX/UI standpoint (so usability issues to solve still), and I look forward to trying it again next year.

I used their software this year as some market research. It calculated the same return as turbo tax. I will say that the returns we used were pretty simple. While not the solution for everyone I was impressed with the usability of the software.

Edit: the state returns were for Illinois if that makes a difference.

So does TurboTax. Every time I've used that product, the IRS actually sent me a letter back saying "you calculated your taxes wrong, here's some extra money we owe you."

Never had that problem when using TaxAct, and I usually got a bigger refund too.

I had issues with CreditKarma. The problem I faced was most likely an issue specific to me and my state. Having said that, their lack of response is a major put off. It's time like these when you need a response in a reasonable amount of time. (As a matter of fact, they are yet to respond - weeks after I figured I'll just file directly)

For others in CA, FTB's free tax filing tool works just fine.

I really hope so!

If you wanna help on this mission, we are hiring! Feel free to reach out to matt at creditkarma.com.

Damn. And I already filed my taxes. Maybe I'll use this next year.

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