Have you ever thought about doing your own taxes? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

I’m a do-it-yourselfer that wanted to learn more about my finances. Filing my tax return seemed like the perfect mission!

I spend hours each week studying how to make more and spend less. Why not also learn how my money is taxed?

My wife and I have a fairly straightforward tax situation. We don’t have kids, we don’t own a house, and neither of us are self-employed. But we do have investment accounts that generated dividends, interest, and other taxable income.

We were ideal candidates to file our own tax return, and it was a great opportunity to expand our financial literacy.

Let’s get to it!

Should You Use FreeTaxUSA?

Before starting our tax return, I shopped around first. I researched most of the major tax service providers – names like TurboTax and H&R Block. I noticed many of them offer “free” products, but they only apply to the most basic tax situations. If you have a health savings account, mortgage interest, or any investment income, then you will have to pay extra.

That means using the premium software, which can cost up to $90 for a federal return and $50 per state return. The average price to have a professional file your taxes is $176. At that point the difference in cost doesn’t seem worth doing it ourselves.

I kept searching for other options, and that’s when I came across FreeTaxUSA. To be honest the name was a little off-putting at first, and the price seemed too good to be true. They offer a $0 federal tax return and charge just $14.99 per state. I was surprised to see that this covered everything I needed plus itemized deductions, rental properties, and even self-employment.

As I read more about the website, I learned that it is entirely legitimate. The Better Business Bureau gives TaxHawk, Inc. (parent company of FreeTaxUSA) an A+ rating. They have several security certificates, meaning they encrypt the data that is sent between their server and your browser. FreeTaxUSA also offers multi-factor authentication for your account login.

FreeTaxUSA has straightforward pricing on their products, which I appreciate. Plus they cover a ton of tax situations, so I decided to sign up!

Since this was my first time filing my own tax return, I upgraded to the deluxe account. This gave me access to priority customer support, unlimited tax return amendments, and audit assist. It only cost $6.99 so it was well worth the money.

The audit assist is by far the most valuable perk. It gives me access to their audit specialists. In the event of an audit, the specialist will answer any of my questions and help me properly respond to the IRS.

I felt confident and ready to file my tax return.  

Preparing for Your Tax Return

The IRS provides a helpful tax preparation checklist which lists the main documents and information needed to file a tax return. For our situation, this included:

• W-2 (wages)
• Form 1099-INT (interest income)
• Form 1099-DIV (dividend income)
• Form 1099-B (capital gains/losses)
• HSA contribution statements

We have several accounts, but it only took a few minutes to log in and download the e-files. Once I had them all together, it was time to get started!

Filing Your Tax Return with FreeTaxUSA

FreeTaxUSA has a user-friendly interface for navigating through their site. The top banner shows all the major categories of the tax return. Each section has its own subcategories. If you ever get lost, the drop-down menu allows you to retrace your steps.

Filing my taxes felt like taking an online survey. The site guided me through each category and displayed a new set of questions to answer. Whenever I got stuck, there were always links or FAQs to reference. I started our tax return on a Saturday morning, and I was done before lunch!

For more click here!