Paging all procrastinators!
If you have not filed your taxes, then tomorrow, Wednesday, July 15, is the last day to do so. If you have already filed, good for you! This information will be good to have in mind for next year. If there is no conceivable way for you to file on time, please remember you can request an extension. Copied from the IRS website: “Individual taxpayers who need additional time to file beyond the July 15 deadline can request a filing extension by filing Form 4868 through their tax professional, tax software or using the Free File link on IRS.gov.”
Please note that free file link. If you scoffed that there is no such thing as “free” tax filing, you are partially correct. There are actual, real free tax filing sites. But these sites are powered by the same tax-filing companies that make money off “helping” you with your taxes. Which means these companies go out of their way to hide the actual free sites.
If you Google “free tax filing online,” one result on the first three pages will take you to an actual free filing site. OLT Free File is a real free filing site (page 2 of the search). The only other link that will eventually lead you to free filing options is the IRS website, where you answer a few questions to determine if you qualify for free filing. That website can be found here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/.
All the other results lead you to websites that claim to be free, but as soon as you start putting in your information, you’re likely to find you don’t qualify for their version of “free.” On TurboTax, for example, you can start your filing for free and it takes you to a list of categories. If you check any categories beyond “I paid rent,” “I have a job (received W-2)” or “I have children or dependents,” you will be redirected to their deluxe service for $60.
Thanks to the work of the Netflix show “Patriot Act” (and verified with our own research on the IRS website), we have a list of websites where you can actually file for free (with the IRS’s approval). (Fun fact: This editorial has more “free”s than a TurboTax commercial.)
The IRS website referenced earlier and each of the sites we’re about to list will display the criteria you must meet to file for free on that website, such as if you have an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $69,000 or less; if you or a spouse are active duty military with an AGI of $69,000 or less; and/or if you are eligible for Earned Income Tax Credit.
In addition, some of these sites have an age limit, while others do not. Because of limited space, we can’t list each site’s criteria, but we will share the links to each site.
FileYourTaxes.com (https://www.fileyourtaxes.com/irs-free-file); Free 1040 Tax Return https://freetaxes.free1040taxreturn.com/); 1040NOW (https://www.1040now.net/freefile.htm); TurboTax (https://freefile.intuit.com/); Online Taxes at OLT.com (https://www.olt.com/main/oltfree/default.asp); and FreeTaxUSA (https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile/). The following have shortened links that will be easier for you to type into a browser: TaxSlayer (http://ow.ly/fKyM50AviGK); TaxAct (http://ow.ly/WoqH50AviGH); and H&R Block (http://ow.ly/4Uoq50AviGI).
