“You may miss deductions that apply to you and you don’t receive the personal service or planning advice that a CPA can provide,” he said.
While he agrees that online services can be cheap and easy, but of course, advocated the use of a CPA for individuals whose financial situations are more complex. He knows people who have filed on their own and received letters from the IRS to make changes to their tax return. I also chatted with Jay Porter, a CPA at Porter and Associates. “In most cases, your refund will be delayed until it’s corrected that’s all,” he said. Many people e-file using online software to avoid paying the fees for tax preparation.Īt the end of the day, though, he assured me that I wouldn’t land in jail if my math was accidently a little off. I chalked it up to human error, so I went back through and gave each return a second look. H&R Block and TaxSlayer gave me the same state refund as the other programs, but both services gave me $14 less for my federal return. TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA gave me the same refund amount for both federal and state returns. I expected every program to issue me the same amount of money for my federal and state refunds, but they didn’t. I went through the motions and added all of my personal information, stopping just before it was time to file. So to get to the bottom of it, I completed my tax return on five different online services, which was both a tedious exercise in data entry, and an eye-opening experience.įor the experiment, I completed my return on CreditKarma, FreeTaxUSA, H&R Block, TurboTax and TaxSlayer, which all offer free federal e-filing for 1040EZ. I’m just curious if my results would be same from one provider to another. Many are approved by and meet the standards of the IRS. To be clear, I’m not questioning the validity of these services. Filing your taxes with online software like TurboTax or H&R Block is convenient and safe - but are they consistent from one program to another?
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