I’m sure doing it manually is the safest, but perhaps there’s a least poison for software/services for filing US taxes. What do you recommend? (or, atleast, what do you recommend steering clear of)
One way to find providers is to go to your states tax site and see who supports your state. This list is often a lot shorter list. The ones I would look at in general sorted by decreasing popularity of their web site last year:
- TurboTax. 52%.
- H&R Block. 31%.
- FreeTaxUSA. 8%.
- TaxAct. 5%.
- TaxSlayer. 2.4%.
- OLT.com. 0.58%.
- 1040.com. 0.26%.
The % numbers are really just relative website popularity of the options I listed at a point in time. As I said before, I favor FreeTaxUSA. Interesting they can import from TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, TaxSlayer, CashApp, and OLT so they must consider those their major competitors. Also note that I believe the same company that is behind FreeTaxUSA also markets under TaxHawk and Express1040.com.
TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer tend to be the high end products in decreasing popularity and price. The first three tend to be somewhat similar pricing, and TaxSlayer a bit cheaper. FreeTaxUSA, OLT, and 1040.com tend to be the lower end offerings again in order of decreasing web site popularity though not always decreasing price. FreeTaxUSA appears to be the low end market leader.
I have not used all of these but I have used FreeTaxUSA and TaxAct. Both were fine. We finally ditched TaxAct a few years ago due to rising prices and their stupid tiered pricing plans. FreeTaxUSA is just so much simpler then many of the other providers because it comes without most the marketing BS and it has a good price/value ratio.
Others, feel free to comment and make any corrections to what I have said.
