I know a number of people who are now using https://www.freetaxusa.com/ to file their taxes for free, but I've been hesitant to. Does anyone know offhand if they're actually trustworthy?
I’ve used them for probably the better part of a decade. I’ve never had any issues, they’re pretty inexpensive, they e-file by default and you get a notification when state and fed are accepted. The wizard is easy to follow and explanations are available. They have bells and whistles like audit protection, that seem reasonable but that I’ve largely avoided.
The name might seem a little sketchy, but it’s a legit service. I don’t know about “free” - I’ve always ended up paying to file at least one of state or federal, I don’t recall, but not pricy.
(Edit - looking closer, I’ve been using them since 2007. Wow, time flies. Great service, no complaints.)
Ditto - no spam at all. I do get reminders that it’s time to file, and conveniently, if nothing has changed since the previous year (address, employer, marital status, etc.) then they can pre-populate the form.
I believe they may even pay these companies to offer the service.
Free Tax USA doesn't have an income limit, and may be the only one, so I've used them for at least 5 years. They charge $10 for state filing, so I use CalFile instead.
My tax situation is pretty simple and they've filled my needs. The only issue I've had is with exempting Treasury bills from state tax but I don't file state with them anyway so maybe I missed something.
I've filed with freetaxusa for about 6 years. It's been great. Does everything TurboTax can. It's free, but I splurge and spend all of $8 for Deluxe to show support.
Anything to unseat Intuit. That said, a direct file option would be best, but I don't trust myself to fill the forms correctly.
> When using digital media (PDF, photo, etc.) imports and/or uploads on FreeTaxUSA.com, any information submitted by the customer through this service may be processed using automated (AI) and/or manual (human) methods. The information given may be used to improve and develop and train our artificial intelligence and other machine learning models. We implement robust safeguards in our use of AI to maintain security and compliance, ensuring sensitive information is protected and handled responsibly. Any sensitive information is anonymized or excluded from use. We do not share customer data or trained AI models with any third party. When leveraging cloud infrastructure, all data is securely managed and maintained under TaxHawk’s exclusive control.
In other words, if you don't use features like PDF, photo upload, there's no AI use.
First time filing on our own in 25 years and it was great experience. Paid for the state filing. They didn’t seem to really push the add ons for federal.
I've used em for years after TurboTax made it even more annoying to file for free.
I prep about a dozen returns every year with it. Id say it's the easiest and most straight forward e-file I've ever used. A simple return should take maybe 10 minutes. They don't upsell very hard either which is super nice.
They also keep your previous years return for free which greatly speeds up filing. Most services charge for that.
Do your return in TurboTax next time but before you pay, do the same return on freetaxusa. You will see it’s the same amount if you entered the same information.
I highly recommend them. I don’t know what you mean by “trustworthy”, but they are a legit service and have way less dark patterns, upsell screens, charge less money, and are overall a vastly better experience than TurboTax.
I've been using opentaxsolve since... a while. Definitely a crusty Linux user's method, and it does cost me the price of a stamp each year, but I like it.
Really enjoyed the multi-part/multi-file tutorial for the fact-graph, a seemingly core component that I saw referenced in a couple places.
> Take a look at [Form 1040][1]. Line 12c asks the taxpayer to add lines 12a and 12b. This is a common pattern on tax forms. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
> There is a relationship betwen lines 12a, 12b, and 12c. In order to know what should be entered in 12c, we need to first know the values of 12a and 12b.
> This pattern might remind you of a spreadsheet. If we were to transcribe Form 1040 into Excel, we might imagine that line 12c would be a formula like =SUM(Line12A,Line12B). Excel spreadsheets are _declarative_, which is to say we define the relationships between cells using formulas, but we leave it up to Excel to determine how to solve the spreadsheet.
Direct File is a service from the United States Government that provides taxpayers the option to electronically file their federal tax return for free, directly with the IRS. The currently proposed budget bill supported by President Trump would end this service.
SEC. 112207. TASK FORCE ON THE TERMINATION OF DIRECT FILE.
(a) Termination of Direct File.—As soon as practicable, and not
later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue
Service Direct File program has been terminated.
Just to add some context, there is right now two similarly named systems:
E-file: which is essentially just an api end point for accepting digitized tax returns and is what all the major (paid) tax software uses.
Direct file: a web based version of the 1040 irs forms which will, when filled out, submit the forms electronically.
=== Edit: there are actually three, the third is Free Fillable Forms, which is what I'm actually talking about here ===
Note that when I say "version of the forms" I mean that quite literally. The interface is as close as html can come to looking like a printed 1040 form and about 1 tiny step up from filling out a pdf version.
The forms will occasionally do math for you: some of the fields are marked as the sum of a set of fields and those will automatically do the addition for you, but that's the limit of the automation.
For example, to compute your actual owed taxes you need a percentage to multiply by your taxable income, and that number is found by looking through a roughly 10 page table that maps income ranges in brackets of $50 to a specific number (so 0-50 is one number, 50-100 is another, and so on up to several hundred thousand).
To get this number for the form you, of course, must open the help documentation in a separate tab and scan through it looking for your bracket.
My understanding as to why it works this way is that the irs is basically doing as much as they're legally allowed to. The irs is, as far as i know, forbidden by law, from developing any kind of software that helps you file taxes (or more accurately, competes with turbotax) and this web-form doesn't quite count as breaking that law.
I'll note in passing, that as a general rule "both sides" tend to take turbotax money to hobble the irs, this specific direct file was championed and funded by democrats, opposed by republicans and the republican president trump is trying to delete it.
It's a dead program walking right now anyway, regardless of the budgeting.
> The program had been in limbo since the start of the Trump administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on his social media site, X, that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File.
> There was some hope that Musk, with his DOGE team of computer programmers, could take over Direct File and improve it. But the two people familiar with the decision to end Direct File said its future became clear when the IRS staff assigned to the program were told in mid-March to stop working on its development for the 2026 tax filing season.
How about we just have the gov't do the math based on what our employers already tell them and then send us a bill or refund. Why must we play this game as if the gov't doesn't know all the info already?
There are a bunch of us for whom it doesn't have all the info (if any, in fact).
Granted, the ranks of the self-employed are a small fraction of all taxpayers, and there's no reason the latter should be forced to do things as if they were part of the former.
Because in many cases they don't know. They don't know about your self-employment income and business expenses. They might not know about your marital status and dependents. They won't know about various credits such as education expenses, solar or EV credits, etc.
You can deduct medical expenses if they're large enough relative to your salary.
You can deduct the cost of thefts. You can deduct alimony. You can deduct student loan interest. You can deduct business use of your car. Donations to charity. Bad loans you gave out. Gambling loses.
Life is not simple. You should not perceive this as an "interview." The tax industry is huge because our businesses are monopoly sized. The majority of money that is liable for tax purposes is held and moved by businesses. Your income taxes are not what this industry runs on.
Direct File was rolled out gradually as a pilot program. It was also only available for taxpayers in 12 states.
My guess: since the tax code is so complicated, they probably wanted to support the simplest and most common filing cases in the first release. Handling all the edge cases would delay the launch, and prevent them from collecting feedback. If the feedback and demand was positive for v1, they could expand the surface area in the future.
Assuming I am reading this Census table correctly, 2023 Table A-2 [0] says 76% of the US has a household income under $150k. So as an initial deployment, covering 3/4 of the country as the first filter is not terrible.
I know a number of people who are now using https://www.freetaxusa.com/ to file their taxes for free, but I've been hesitant to. Does anyone know offhand if they're actually trustworthy?
I’ve used them for probably the better part of a decade. I’ve never had any issues, they’re pretty inexpensive, they e-file by default and you get a notification when state and fed are accepted. The wizard is easy to follow and explanations are available. They have bells and whistles like audit protection, that seem reasonable but that I’ve largely avoided.
The name might seem a little sketchy, but it’s a legit service. I don’t know about “free” - I’ve always ended up paying to file at least one of state or federal, I don’t recall, but not pricy.
(Edit - looking closer, I’ve been using them since 2007. Wow, time flies. Great service, no complaints.)
I’ve used them the past 3 years for my taxes, great experience and never had a single issue for what that’s worth
They don’t spam my email and phone unlike Intuit (even after I deleted my account)
Ditto - no spam at all. I do get reminders that it’s time to file, and conveniently, if nothing has changed since the previous year (address, employer, marital status, etc.) then they can pre-populate the form.
The IRS provides a list of free filing websites: https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/
I believe they may even pay these companies to offer the service.
Free Tax USA doesn't have an income limit, and may be the only one, so I've used them for at least 5 years. They charge $10 for state filing, so I use CalFile instead.
My tax situation is pretty simple and they've filled my needs. The only issue I've had is with exempting Treasury bills from state tax but I don't file state with them anyway so maybe I missed something.
I've filed with freetaxusa for about 6 years. It's been great. Does everything TurboTax can. It's free, but I splurge and spend all of $8 for Deluxe to show support.
Anything to unseat Intuit. That said, a direct file option would be best, but I don't trust myself to fill the forms correctly.
https://www.freetaxusa.com/privacy
> The information given may be used to improve and develop and train our artificial intelligence and other machine learning models.
Full context is better --
> When using digital media (PDF, photo, etc.) imports and/or uploads on FreeTaxUSA.com, any information submitted by the customer through this service may be processed using automated (AI) and/or manual (human) methods. The information given may be used to improve and develop and train our artificial intelligence and other machine learning models. We implement robust safeguards in our use of AI to maintain security and compliance, ensuring sensitive information is protected and handled responsibly. Any sensitive information is anonymized or excluded from use. We do not share customer data or trained AI models with any third party. When leveraging cloud infrastructure, all data is securely managed and maintained under TaxHawk’s exclusive control.
In other words, if you don't use features like PDF, photo upload, there's no AI use.
First time filing on our own in 25 years and it was great experience. Paid for the state filing. They didn’t seem to really push the add ons for federal.
I've used em for years after TurboTax made it even more annoying to file for free.
I prep about a dozen returns every year with it. Id say it's the easiest and most straight forward e-file I've ever used. A simple return should take maybe 10 minutes. They don't upsell very hard either which is super nice.
They also keep your previous years return for free which greatly speeds up filing. Most services charge for that.
Do your return in TurboTax next time but before you pay, do the same return on freetaxusa. You will see it’s the same amount if you entered the same information.
I highly recommend them. I don’t know what you mean by “trustworthy”, but they are a legit service and have way less dark patterns, upsell screens, charge less money, and are overall a vastly better experience than TurboTax.
I've been using opentaxsolve since... a while. Definitely a crusty Linux user's method, and it does cost me the price of a stamp each year, but I like it.
Really enjoyed the multi-part/multi-file tutorial for the fact-graph, a seemingly core component that I saw referenced in a couple places.
> Take a look at [Form 1040][1]. Line 12c asks the taxpayer to add lines 12a and 12b. This is a common pattern on tax forms. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
> There is a relationship betwen lines 12a, 12b, and 12c. In order to know what should be entered in 12c, we need to first know the values of 12a and 12b.
> This pattern might remind you of a spreadsheet. If we were to transcribe Form 1040 into Excel, we might imagine that line 12c would be a formula like =SUM(Line12A,Line12B). Excel spreadsheets are _declarative_, which is to say we define the relationships between cells using formulas, but we leave it up to Excel to determine how to solve the spreadsheet.
This is their data-relational langage.
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/main/direct-f...
There's a good presentation deck in the repo worth a quick read: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/main/docs/eng...
Always great seeing this high quality work coming out of government. Sad to see it being shut down.
Anyone know the story behind the release of this repo? It doesn't look like an official IRS organization account.
Good question. This seems to be a more official IRS organization: https://github.com/irsgov
I found a link to that organization here[0] at least, so this one at seems to be official.
[0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/ides-data-transm...
I bumped into this thread after reading this article today. Makes no sense to post again on HN, but I'll post it here.
https://www.404media.co/directfile-open-source-irs-tax-filin...
Nice initiative to see this code on github.
Direct File is a service from the United States Government that provides taxpayers the option to electronically file their federal tax return for free, directly with the IRS. The currently proposed budget bill supported by President Trump would end this service.
That is sufficiently dumb that I can only hope you're wrong. Any chance you have the relevant text?
SEC. 112207. TASK FORCE ON THE TERMINATION OF DIRECT FILE.
(a) Termination of Direct File.—As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has been terminated.
1 reply →
Just to add some context, there is right now two similarly named systems:
E-file: which is essentially just an api end point for accepting digitized tax returns and is what all the major (paid) tax software uses.
Direct file: a web based version of the 1040 irs forms which will, when filled out, submit the forms electronically.
=== Edit: there are actually three, the third is Free Fillable Forms, which is what I'm actually talking about here ===
Note that when I say "version of the forms" I mean that quite literally. The interface is as close as html can come to looking like a printed 1040 form and about 1 tiny step up from filling out a pdf version.
The forms will occasionally do math for you: some of the fields are marked as the sum of a set of fields and those will automatically do the addition for you, but that's the limit of the automation.
For example, to compute your actual owed taxes you need a percentage to multiply by your taxable income, and that number is found by looking through a roughly 10 page table that maps income ranges in brackets of $50 to a specific number (so 0-50 is one number, 50-100 is another, and so on up to several hundred thousand).
To get this number for the form you, of course, must open the help documentation in a separate tab and scan through it looking for your bracket.
My understanding as to why it works this way is that the irs is basically doing as much as they're legally allowed to. The irs is, as far as i know, forbidden by law, from developing any kind of software that helps you file taxes (or more accurately, competes with turbotax) and this web-form doesn't quite count as breaking that law.
I'll note in passing, that as a general rule "both sides" tend to take turbotax money to hobble the irs, this specific direct file was championed and funded by democrats, opposed by republicans and the republican president trump is trying to delete it.
11 replies →
https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-tax-returns-free-...
It's a dead program walking right now anyway, regardless of the budgeting.
> The program had been in limbo since the start of the Trump administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on his social media site, X, that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File.
> There was some hope that Musk, with his DOGE team of computer programmers, could take over Direct File and improve it. But the two people familiar with the decision to end Direct File said its future became clear when the IRS staff assigned to the program were told in mid-March to stop working on its development for the 2026 tax filing season.
https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-tax-returns-free-...
Regardless of its fate, it's open sourced. It can now be forked and made better in far less time.
This looks like code to run the Direct File service. Is it useful to run it yourself?
Is there some reason we can't just take the PDF forms, script them so they assist the filer, and then allow a form of digital attestation and filing?
What more needs to be done?
How about we just have the gov't do the math based on what our employers already tell them and then send us a bill or refund. Why must we play this game as if the gov't doesn't know all the info already?
There is a bunch of code to import w2s from the SSA in this codebase - this did happen this year for direct file. That being said, big issues remain:
- Employers don't tell the federal government about state tax information and when they do, the government doesn't store that information
- W2s aren't due to the SSA at the opening of tax filing season and penalties aren't commonly enforced for submitting w2s on time.
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/main/direct-f...
There are a bunch of us for whom it doesn't have all the info (if any, in fact).
Granted, the ranks of the self-employed are a small fraction of all taxpayers, and there's no reason the latter should be forced to do things as if they were part of the former.
1 reply →
Because in many cases they don't know. They don't know about your self-employment income and business expenses. They might not know about your marital status and dependents. They won't know about various credits such as education expenses, solar or EV credits, etc.
4 replies →
Why bother with the "interview" at all? Most, if not all, countries send their citizens a tax bill with what they are owed or due.
Very simple. No more guessing game.
This overly complex system we have in the USA is built intentionally to benefit multi-billion dollar tax preparation industry.
You can deduct medical expenses if they're large enough relative to your salary.
You can deduct the cost of thefts. You can deduct alimony. You can deduct student loan interest. You can deduct business use of your car. Donations to charity. Bad loans you gave out. Gambling loses.
Life is not simple. You should not perceive this as an "interview." The tax industry is huge because our businesses are monopoly sized. The majority of money that is liable for tax purposes is held and moved by businesses. Your income taxes are not what this industry runs on.
https://freefillableforms.com/
More or less as you describe, for your IRS returns, of arbitrary complexity and value.
You're missing an F, https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/
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I posted a bit of a rant on this down thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44133009
Additional limitations if your household wages are more than $125,000
You can’t use Direct File if:
If your wages are more than $200,000 ($168,600 if you had more than one employer).
You file as Married Filing Jointly, and your spouse’s wages are more than $200,000 ($168,600 if your spouse had more than one employer).
You file as Married Filing Jointly, and you and your spouse's wages are more than $250,000.
You file as Married Filing Separately, and your wages are more than $125,000.
Why are these restrictions in place?
Eyeballing it, I bet those specific restrictions are in place because:
$168.6k is suspiciously the same as the (2024) social security cap, so they probably didn't handle that edge case.
$250k is the start of NIIT, so they probably didn't handle that case either.
1 reply →
Direct File was rolled out gradually as a pilot program. It was also only available for taxpayers in 12 states.
My guess: since the tax code is so complicated, they probably wanted to support the simplest and most common filing cases in the first release. Handling all the edge cases would delay the launch, and prevent them from collecting feedback. If the feedback and demand was positive for v1, they could expand the surface area in the future.
Unfortunately, it didn't last long enough
Assuming I am reading this Census table correctly, 2023 Table A-2 [0] says 76% of the US has a household income under $150k. So as an initial deployment, covering 3/4 of the country as the first filter is not terrible.
[0] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2024/demo/income-poverty/...
Tax industry lobbyists
I forgot how much I dislike the boilerplate verbosity of Java
It always feels like I have build a jet aircraft to cross the street.
Lucky. I have to build a jet aircraft factory, to build the aircraft, to get across the street.
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