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It’s that time of year – time to gather your records and prepare your 2024 tax return. Many HD contributers are involved the IRS’ Voluntary income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, helping to prepare free tax returns for qualifying individuals. This is an excellent program for lower income tax payers. The linked website has a tool for finding a local site. If you have family, friends, or neighbors who might benefit from this excellent program, please think about letting them know. If you are looking for a volunteer opportunity that combines your financial and tax acumen with a real need, consider getting involved. This is my 7th year, and I have to say the volunteers I’ve worked with have consistently been some of the smartest, and most caring, individuals I’ve met. Good luck with your taxes.
Rick, every year I get J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax. The 2025 version is around $14. From Amazon—a bargain for reliable information and far more satisfying than calling the IRS. Ernst & Young has a good guide too. Both are free from your local library. Great for those whose taxes are not too complicated. I’ve also found Bogleheads to be a fairly accurate source for some tricky state information.
After having always prepared our tax returns manually, I was alerted to FreeTaxUSA by Marjorie, with an additional plug from Dan. I researched it further and was impressed especially by the high marks it got on the Bogleheads forum.
So I gave it a try with this year’s return and I was extremely pleased. It was easy to sign up for, easy to use, and yes, completely free (without the extras, which I didn’t need). The whole process was fast, intuitive, and user friendly.
The main reason I’d continued to do our taxes manually was that there always seemed to be some oddball and unavailable form I needed, or I wanted to include an explanatory page of some sort. This year at least that stuff was unnecessary so I breezed right through the FreeTaxUSA process.
Even with the totally free version, the support was excellent. I submitted a few questions and received prompt and helpful replies. I’m still a little unclear on whether I can include supplementary documents in the future if need be, such as explanations of QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions), but I’ll cross that bridge next year when I begin with those.
One of my top pet peeves with the IRS is the dreaded Form 6251 for AMT (Alternate Minimum Tax)—you know, the long, complicated one you have to fill out completely before being told at the end that you don’t need to file it. Just having FreeTaxUSA automatically do that and spare me even thinking about it was a gift from heaven.
So, thank you, Marjorie and Dan, for this Hall of Fame tip!
Andrew, Harry Sit who writes The Financial Toolbox is also a proponent of Free Tax USA. He is helpful with questions about the site and maybe could answer your questions about QCDs and supplemental attachments. He’s been helpful to me.
Glad you found it easier to prepare your taxes this year. Fortunately for you Texas doesn’t have state income tax form. N J goes out of its way to make things unclear.
Marjorie, thanks for another good tip. I just checked out Harry Sit’s website The Finance Buff – Like a Friend Telling You About Money and ended up reading through his blog posts on various subjects for about an hour. Interesting stuff written in layman’s language.