Joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service on the case of bogus tax returns filed used Intuit’s TurboTax software will now be lawmakers from both the House and Senate, who have started probing the recent flurry of fraudulent activity. [More]
e-filing
How To File Your Taxes For Free
By 2.12.10
Generation X Finance tells you how to avoid paying to file your taxes, starting with the method that’s been passed down since the days of caveman accountants — do your taxes yourself with pen and paper. [More]
Using A Free Tax Service To Prepare Your State Return? If You Don't Pay, They May Delete Your Work
By 3.7.08
Last week we wrote about the IRS’ free tax filing program and pointed you to a blog that reviewed all 19 services. Only two offer free state filing, but the blog, Flife, pointed out that you could always use your chosen service to prepare your state return—using it as a sort of worksheet—and then switch to one of the totally free services to do the actual filing. But be careful: a reader just wrote in to say free-tax-return.com completely deleted his state filing when he declined to pay the $13.50 fee.
By 2.19.08
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Commenter Witeowl points out in another thread that if your adjusted gross income was $54,000 or less last year, the IRS can direct you to 19 different companies that will allow you to e-file your 2007 taxes for free. When this writer took advantage of it in the past, “free” meant jumping through a series of GoDaddy-like pages, but in the end it was free to use. [IRS]
I-Can! E-File Not Quite Ready For Primetime
By 2.18.08
Last week we wrote about I-Can! E-File, a free electronic filing service for your federal income taxes. It’s a great idea, and we’re thankful to the Legal Aid Society of Orange County for doing something like this—but you might want to find an alternative this year and give them some time to work out the kinks. Today a reader emailed us to point out that icanefile.org’s password system can be easily cracked, because instead of letting you choose an original password, it requires you to use your name and social security number to set up an account.
No-Name Tax Site Superior to H&R Block
By 4.13.06
John writes that he followed one of those free e-file links on the IRS website and clicked on H&R Block, because it was the only name he knew. After his mother’s passing, he had a little death benefits from IRAs and such.
