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Comment by loosescrews | Hacker News Reader

I have tried nearly all of the DIY tax offerings out there. CreditKarma has a relatively new completely free offering that I feel rivals TurboTax in ease of use. I also feel that it is superior to paid offerings such as H&R Block.

Another completely free offering is freetax.com. I used them for a few years, and while not quite as easy to use, it works well.

Note that both of these free offerings include free state tax filing and have no income limits or up sells.

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> CreditKarma has a relatively new completely free offering that I feel rivals TurboTax in ease of use.

That's why Intuit bought them. Don't expect it to stick around. https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/24/intuit-credit-karma/

Did you mean freetaxusa.com? (freetax.com goes to a site called DIY Tax which doesn't look like they offer free returns anymore.)

I've used freetaxusa.com for the past couple of years. They don't do the same level of hand-holding that TurboTax and TaxAct are famous for. So what I have done in the past is fill out the tricky parts in TaxAct using a free account and if the number look right, copy them into FreeTaxUSA.

I used to use TaxAct until their prices, tiers, and upsells got to be flat-out usurious. FreeTaxUSA federal filing is free but you have to pay a small (around $15) fee if you want to e-file for state. _That_ is a price I can live with. I don't mind paying it at all if it means escaping the TurboTax and TaxAct traps.

I switched to freetaxusa.com this year after 15+ years in Intuit. I have more complex taxes than the average person and I felt like it went just fine. Really happy with the service. Went from about $150 per year to $15.

I've tried a few. But got really frustrated when I had to select the paid option to enter my mortgage information, just to be told that the standard deduction was higher than an itemized deduction anyway, but no way to switch back to the free version.

So last year, I just filled out the forms myself. For me at least, it wasn't actually all that much harder. Sure the UI isn't as nice, and the questions are a little bit harder to understand, but when it comes down to it, I need to fill in the same information either way.

Yeh I found CreditKarma last tax season, and it worked a treat. Of course shortly after that, Intuit bought them as well. Sigh.

I use TaxAct personally.

I tried TaxAct. It was the hardest to use of the bunch. In many cases it just has you fill out the real tax forms. Anyone who wants to fill out the tax forms themselves can do that for free, and TaxAct isn't even much cheaper than its significantly easier to use competitors.

They used to have a forms method and an interview method. If you were familiar with the IRS system, the forms method was very fast. It would be great for a CPA.

Then they dropped the forms method. Now they look like TurboTax.

I remember that filling out paper forms back in the day - especially before small electronic calculators - was a real pain. Especially when you made a change and had to roll everything up again!

I just pay a CPA. It's worth the cost, they're legally liable if they make a mistake, and they'll keep your records for a minimum of 5 years (you should also be keeping your own records).

Plus, if something wonky does happen, they know what the hell to do.

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