- FreeTaxUSA is a great bargain tax software
that you might be considering to file your tax returns with.
It's not a perfect solution,
but there are some notable features and drawbacks.
You'll want to stick around.
I'll be highlighting that in this video.
(dramatic music)
Hey, what's up guys?
It's Justine with the College Investor,
Investing and Personal Finance for Millennials.
It's that time again.
It's time for tax season software hunting.
And in this video, we are highlighting FreeTaxUSA.
So first things first.
Is FreeTaxUSA really free?
Well, what's in a name?
It says it's free.
Federal filing is definitely free
when it comes to FreeTaxUSA.
However, you are going to be paying 14.99 per state filing,
and now it's not free at all.
(laughing)
So if you're just wanting to file your federal return, yes,
you can do that easily with this software.
However, you will be paying 15 bucks for your state return.
All right. So what's new in 2022 with FreeTaxUSA?
So they've showed some marked improvements
in their system navigation.
So they blend the Q and A with some menu navigation as well,
which can help you stay guided
as you are going through the different subsections
of your tax return,
but also guide you through some tricky parts.
In fact, I want to show you inside of the dashboard
to show you exactly what it looks like
so you can figure out whether this tax software
is right for you.
So this is what FreeTaxUSA looks like on the inside.
And you'll see up at the top,
they have this main header navigation
where you can easily go through each section
of your tax return and see what has been completed
and what still needs to be filled out.
And you're going to do this in sequential order,
meaning that you can't jump ahead
to the miscellaneous section before you complete income
and before you complete deductions and credits.
So last where I left off, as I was testing this
was the itemized deduction section and I actually clicked
on standard deduction.
So let's see.
What if I just want to take my standard deduction?
You don't have to enter any itemized deduction,
just skip the itemized deduction screen
by clicking continue.
So this is one of the notable features of FreeTaxUSA,
where they blend the question and answer guidance
with some menu selection navigation,
but sometimes there is kind of these abrupt transitions.
And so I'm going directly
into kind of the itemized deductions.
So I'm just going to click continue
and it can be kind of clunky
if you're not sure what you're doing.
Also remember that this entire platform is free
to file your federal return.
However, if you're going to do the state return,
then it's going to cost you 14.99.
But what I like about FreeTaxUSA
is they have these really clean summaries at the end
of each section so that you can see, okay,
this is what my standard deductions are,
these are some of the things that I noted
as I was filling things out.
And so it keeps it very clean.
Likewise, I can go back to my income summary
and then I can take a look here
and see all of the different forms and sections
within the income subsection
and that way it keeps everything tidy and organized
inside of the dashboard.
However, if you are feeling a little unsure,
if you are filling things out correctly,
or if you have questions,
if you click up here in the upper right hand menu,
you can click on live chat.
Now this is an added feature for 6.99.
You get the live chat audit assist,
which is really nice just in case that happens.
But if you want more support,
you can actually upgrade to the pro support for 24.99,
which includes all of that.
Then you get tax advice from a CPA.
So these are added features that I think you'll want
to take note of if you are considering FreeTaxUSA,
but there are some notable drawbacks.
And one of the first things I want to show you
is the W-2 portion.
Now there's just one portion.
If I wanted to add a W-2,
I have to manually enter all of this information,
which can be extremely time consuming.
Other software has the automatic import feature.
And so if I was considering my time,
when it comes to filing my return,
I would want to make sure that I was using a software
where I could automatically import some of my tax documents
so it could save me the headache
of punching something in incorrectly.
Now, if I'm going back through my return
and going through all of these different sections,
if you're a first time tax filer
or first time using FreeTaxUSA,
you might be confused that you have to actually fill out all
of these sections because of the way
that it's put together here.
So if you don't have a health savings account,
if you don't have qualified adoption expenses,
you don't have to fill this out.
You can actually click continue,
but it's not straightforward to say you actually don't have
to fill that out
unless you were actually reading the fine print here.
Click on any deduction or credit that may apply to you.
But I almost wish this was a little bit more guided
than showing this kind of menu of things to click on.
So that can be confusing and kind of a drawback
of their system.
But if you know what you're doing
when it comes to filing your tax return,
then you might want to consider FreeTaxUSA
on your short list.
You can see everything is very clean and simple.
I also like how the federal refund or federal amount owed
will update here in the corner to help you kind of see
where you're at in the process.
So that's a quick overview of what it looks like inside
of the dashboard.
FreeTaxUSA is a great blend of quality and cost.
So if you don't qualify for the completely free filing
with another software,
then this might actually be a good option for you.
You just have to decide whether manually putting in all
of your tax document numbers is actually going
to be worth the headache for you or not.
If you want to check out complete tax software reviews
in 2022, be sure to check out all of our reviews
at thecollegeinvestor.com.