NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: To those who paid for ‘free’ tax filing from TurboTax
KATE HAYDEN Apr 24, 2019 | 3:43 pm
1 min read time
188 wordsBusiness Record Insider, Government Policy and Law, The Insider NotebookDid anyone else out there waste an afternoon trying to file taxes for free? Apparently it was not just me. A recent Propublica report poked around the code behind TurboTax’s “FREE Guaranteed” tax filing software — the same service I attempted to use this year. “This is a good time to remind you: Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, is one of the companies that has promised the IRS to offer free tax filing to lower-income Americans,” meaning anyone making less than $66,000, Propublica said. It’s also a good reminder to read up on the Free File program, which restricts the IRS’s ability to create its own free service — relying on private companies to offer free filing instead. Although I didn’t fall into either of the scenarios Propublica described, TurboTax booted me out of the Free File program when it got wind of my student loans — ultimately, I filed elsewhere. For those who went through with TurboTax and made less than $34,000, you might be eligible for a refund. If you fit in the under-$66,000 bracket and paid on another service, Propublica reports, refund options are unclear.