[jeremymcanally]

Precisely why I built https://freetofile.com (it’s a simple static site with React for internationalization that automatically renders in Spanish, Chinese, Haitian Creole, or English depending on browser settings). It’s shocking and depressing how many low income people don’t know they don’t need to spend $100-200 to file their taxes.

I want to blanket my area (well the whole country really but baby steps…) in signs with the URL during tax season. I really do loathe the entire industry at this point due to their gross practices around free filing. Some offer “free” online filing but deceptively upsell until they squeeze some money out of the customer. So I want to make any little push back I can against these companies.

[righthand]

One thing you will be up against is this mind set that TurboTax is saving you money. One way to dismantle this cognitive dissonance is to compliment your user with the option of choice. Even if the choice is obvious positioning yourself this way empowers your target user to make the right one:

Freefile helps ensure you keep your entire refund unlike TurboTax and other filing services which takes money from your refund. This tax season the choice is yours.

[susiecambria]

Well done :-)

An offer and suggestion. The offer: I'm happy to blog and otherwise share your site with folks in my little part of the world (Northern Neck of Virginia).

Suggestion: Consider a redesign where the text is not white on a dark background. I just found this design guidance from CDC https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/11938; not sure if there is updated research. If there is, I'd love to read it.

[noahjk]

> I'm happy to blog and otherwise share your site with folks in my little part of the world

To clarify, do you have a blog that you've managed to share with your local community? Or are these two separate statements?

I ask because I've been lately interested in the idea of a "community" site - a 'hub' for locals - so if that's what you do, I'd love to hear more!

[throwaway127482]

Getting a 404 from that link

[gnabgib]

Drop the semi-colon: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/11938

[alwyn]

Not from the US, but I did see a missing word in the footer:

> There was a recent effort by the U.S. government *to* create a no cost,

[notherhack]

Refusing connections from VPNs is a baby step in the wrong direction.

  The connection has timed out
  An error occurred during a connection to freetofile.com.

[godkernel]

great job. I used to use turbotax here in canada, until i figure it out that i could just fill it somewherelse for free.

[__s]

GenuTax is the free software I used for Canadian taxes

[Throwthrowbob]

I used https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/income-tax/personal-... (or an equivalent page, in case it's shifted around) to look for options a couple years back. I was glad I had this list to look through. I believe I compared Wealthsimple, EachTax, and UFile.

[goatking]

Wealthsimple Tax is free too, and pretty good for simple use cases.

[rglover]

Dude, thank you. This is exactly what I've been looking for.

[Spivak]

Who's spending that much on their taxes? I'm not low income by any means and I've not paid a single dollar to HR Block who does my taxes every year.

[jeremymcanally]

My mom spends easily that much with her tax preparer who is an independent person who tries to dissuade usage of software like TurboTax. My sister spends about $100 to file, and they have simple W-2 stuff. I know several folks at my church who spend $50-$75 on TurboTax or something similar every year.

I just spent like $200 to file mine with TurboTax only because I have a very simple 1099-K/Schedule C since my wife sells things on Etsy. I know Schedule C can range from my simple setup to absolutely ridiculous, so I don't totally grudge it. But at the same time, there are a lot of small business owners where that's a big chunk of change for them.

[dh2022]

At Costco TurboTax with Business (or something like that) costs around $79.99 + tax. It has Schedule C [0]. Next time you want to buy TurboTax maybe buy it from Costco - $200 for your usage scenario looks like over-payment.

[0] It also has other things such as RSUs, stock sales, real estate, cash distributions from businesses, etc... For personal taxes I do not see why anyone would pay a tax accountant as opposed to using TurboTax.

[Edited some formatting tags]

[jonah]

That often doesn't include their in-app purchases per-state for electronic filing.

[dh2022]

Thanks, I did not know that - I live in a state with no income tax.

[ge96]

Haven't filed mine yet for 2024, I did a bunch of side gig work eg. driving door dash, uber eats, donating plasma... been put off by that (having to track every mile). Also I usually end up owing too.

I think the worst thing I had to do was write a FIFO calculator to go through my thousands of tiny crypto transactions back in early 2020s thankfully I don't screw around with that anymore (especially when I got rekt and lost $4K)

[lisbbb]

No semen?

[ge96]

Don't you need to have qualifications like have a degree

Also while I have intellect, I am defective like anxiety, bad genes (or maybe it's not genes but environment anyway I'm not who I want to be)

[underlipton]

The most infamous requirement: men under 5'9" need not apply. Would have been a nice budget-bolster...er... during college, but alas.

[GuinansEyebrows]

fight eugenics: lie.

[rkomorn]

It was considered an uncharitable donation.

[sharpy]

As someone whose employer uses a broker that doesn't do cost basis correctly for RSUs, I was very surprised TurboTax was able to import the supplement and adjust it correctly for me.

Even without RSUs, I usually have hundreds of transactions across multiple brokers.

[dmoy]

> whose employer uses a broker that doesn't do cost basis correctly for RSUs, I was very surprised TurboTax was able to import the supplement and adjust it correctly for me.

Approximately zero brokers do this, because RSU are still noncovered shares.

> Even without RSUs, I usually have hundreds of transactions across multiple brokers.

As a corollary, "hundreds of transactions" of covered shares collapsed into one summary line.

RSU is a pain though to enter. Technically you can enter a summary line and send in a 1099 to the IRS (last year was the first year that could be done electronically, so, fingers crossed it actually works correctly).

[plorkyeran]

Etrade has always reported the correct cost basis for my RSUs. They do report an incorrect basis plus supplement for ESPP shares though.

[dmoy]

Reported to you, of reported to the IRS? As in if you just push through without a 8949 does the IRS come after you with a CP-2000 a few years later with a letter assuming 0 cost basis? Or does the IRS already have correct numbers?

[abustamam]

I do consulting on the side and trade crypto and I pay my accountant around $1000 a year for taxes and payroll. The way I have it structured is that it just qualifies as a business expense, so I can get my wife and I'd personal taxes done as part of the deal.

I suspect many others on HN have something similar setup.

[phyzix5761]

Maybe their fee is deducted from your refund?

[JKCalhoun]

Or they're over 65 or something?

[pkilgore]

Did you not read the article, at all?

[skrtskrt]

There's certain cases, like deducting student loan interest paid, which these companies gate behind paid versions. So yes if you have extremely simple taxes you can usually file for free but even some really basic deductions are gated.

[xp84]

Go look at the financial results of H&R Block and tell me your guess of how many people are spending a ton of money getting taxes done. (Intuit too, but we might not know how much is TT vs QuickBooks).

And I suspect the #1 most common tax form H&R does for retail clients is the 1040EZ, the one that should take anyone with a $2 calculator a total of 10 minutes to get through. For the privilege of having H&R do it for you, you get to pay about $75 and they'll generously loan you your own few thousand dollar (due to EITC) refund on the spot, at an effective APR of like 7,000%

[nsxwolf]

I pay my accountant $300 a year to do my taxes. It was really a shock to find out that TurboTax was completely ignorant of my tax situation and was costing me thousands of dollars a year.

[mothballed]

Even freetaxusa charges for state taxes IIRC. Some of the cheaper ones surprise you with fees as soon as you add capital gains, crypto, or anything more interesting than W2 income.

[babyshake]

I think the state fee for freetaxusa is something like $30 IIRC. It was small enough where I didn't even bother looking into whether it goes to the state or the software vendor. That's the cost of a casual lunch for one at 2025 prices.

[DeRock]

Its half that, $15.

[jandrese]

I think it depends on the state. Virginia for instance used to have a free government run tax filing system, but the tax prep industry got a rep elected who killed it off and punished the state for its insolence with one of the highest e-file rates in the country.

[Ir0nMan]

You haven't realized that they have been taking their payment from your refund all these years? They are a business not a charity.

[stronglikedan]

They truly do simple 1040s for free, even though they are indeed not a charity.

[Spivak]

I mean I've paid like $18 to efile my state taxes but they haven't taken any of my refund and I get it direct deposited from the IRS.

What tax complexities exist for low income people that would cause $200 fees?

[tracker1]

Sell some stuff on Etsy and get payouts on social media. As soon as you start adding in business expenses, it inflates pretty quickly.

I've often taken on a side project or two a year for software dev/consulting and it usually winds up being $200-350 to have my taxes done. If I only have W2 income, I'll do the electronic version of TurboTax though. I also do 0 deductions and have extra out of each check taken out just in case, I don't set aside or do quarterly payments and usually get a decent return back.