The Cheapest Ways to File your Taxes this Year

It’s almost tax time again! The IRS has been accepting 2017 tax returns for the past couple months. Interestingly, there are a couple additional days to file taxes this year due to April 15 falling on a Sunday as well as the District of Columbia’s Emancipation Day holiday. That pushes the traditional April 15 deadline to April 17, 2018.

Of course, there are always a multitude of options when filing your taxes. While free is always preferred for Americans under a specific income threshold, we are also going to break down the top software options for knocking out those pesky taxes on a lazy Sunday.

The Best Free Options, $66,000 and under:

If you made less than $64,000 over 2017, you can visit the Free File page on the IRS site. That site provides thirteen software options on third party sites. Read each option carefully to see if you qualify. Many of the options are limited to a specific age range, state or even dollar figure.

For instance, the TurboTax’s popular software caps the limit at $33,000 rather than $64,000 unless you eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Alternatively, Free1040TaxReturn.com offers the $64,000 limit to anyone under 70, assuming you don’t live in five excluded states.

Some of these sites will also offer free state returns, but others will charge. It’s recommended that you search your state’s website for information regarding free filing options for state taxes.

The Best Free Option, over $66,000:

If you make more than $66,000 in your household, you can also just enter your tax information into the paper forms using FreeFile. Of course, this is significantly more complex as you have to understand how tax forms work rather than answering questions in tax software. However, you can use your tax forms (completed with tax software from previous years) to figure out where to fill out data correctly.

In addition, this is the second year that Credit Karma has offered this service. According to the signup page, the service will be completely free. Specifically, they claim to offer free federal & state filing, no additional fees for using the service and have a support staff on hand to answer questions.

The Cheapest Software Options:

TaxAct remains the champion for the least expensive, basic tax software at between $15 for federal filing and $17 for state filing. It’s also highly competitive (feature-wise) to H&R Block as well as TurboTax, particularly ideal for anyone that’s filing a simple return. It’s a little less intuitive for people that are self-employed or have lots of investment income, but it will do the job with a little digging. It’s our pick for the best option for most users.

If your taxes are very complicated and requires lots of itemizing, you may want to invest in TurboTax. This would be more ideal for anyone that’s a small business owner or has to deal with investments like rental property. The downside is that you will have to pay up to $120 for the right software as an additional $37 when filing your state taxes.

There are also some perks to consider with more expensive software. Some tax software has an auto-import feature that pulls all W2 information in without having to enter it line by line. Other features included in some tax software are audit-checks, saving tax info online and the ability to load your refund onto a Visa prepaid card or a store gift card.

Here’s a breakdown on costs for the top five tax software options:

• TurboTax – Federal: $60 to $120 / State: $40
• TaxAct – Federal: $15 to $70 / State: $17 to $40
• TaxSlayer – Federal: $24 to $47 / State: $29
• H&R Block – Federal: $50 to $95 / State: $40
• Jackson Hewitt – Federal: $55 to 75 / State: $40

Do You Even Need to File?

Just a reminder, you may not need to file a tax return if you make less than $10,350 per year (under age 65). Here’s a chart that breaks down income thresholds for filing. However, you may want to considering filing anyway, especially if you can tax advantage of credits like the American Opportunity credit. That will help you get a little money back this year.

Are There Deals on Tax Software?

Yes. Turbotax’s software packages will go on and off sale frequently starting in late January through about early April. Look for deals in the Ben’s feed here from retailers such as Amazon and Dell.

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5 Comments

1. 

   Stephen

   October 3, 2018 at 4:03 pm

   I just found these comments. Taxhawk and FreeTaxUSA have websites that look suspiciously exactly the same. I used taxact the last two years.

   Reply
2. 

   Chris

   February 3, 2018 at 2:29 am

   Olt online taxes 9.95

   Reply
3. 

   Biggie

   January 30, 2018 at 9:40 am

   Also taxhawk.com has free federal and $12.95 state filing. Haven’t used them yet, but considering for this year.

   Reply
4. 

   Jackie

   February 25, 2017 at 3:53 am

   through, not threw, sorry

   Reply
5. 

   Jackie

   February 25, 2017 at 3:50 am

   The best way to file your taxes is http://www.FreeTaxUSA.com. I have used them for the last 5 years. They have excellent software to guide you through filling out your taxes. They save your info & prefill everything for you the following years. Federal is free. State is $12.95 filed. Start at http://www.TopCashback.com. When you go threw them to http://www.FreeTaxUSA.com you will receive 50% back from them, making your final total $6.48 to get both Fed & State efiled.

   Reply