A First Look at Free 1040 Tax Return Free File Edition
Individuals may be able to prepare their federal tax return at no cost through Free 1040 Tax Return. This is one of fourteen tax software programs available through the IRS's Free File Alliance.
Eligibility for free federal return: Individuals who have adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less, are age 70 or younger, and residing in any state except Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Washington or Wyoming.
Cost to prepare state tax return: $12.95.
Navigation and User Interface:
Free 1040 Tax Return uses a questionnaire-style interface. After choosing filing status, the program asks ten questions such as "Will you be claiming dependents?" or "Do you wish to itemize deductions?" The answers to these questions are used to tailor the rest of the program to the user's needs. However, it does seem a bit odd to ask questions to which someone might not immediately know the answer, such as whether they wish to itemize or whether they are eligible for the earned income credit. Also, the program asks three similar questions about healthcare coverage exemptions, and the questions look and sound repetitive.
This was followed by 19 questions about income and deductions. By this time I started to get frustrated. I'd like to dig in and start on my tax return please! Fortunately, the income and deduction questions were a lot more straightforward. This is followed by a page of eight questions about credits and expenses.
Help Features:
FAQs on the main Web site.
Online help inside the program consists of a message center, explanations of how to navigate the site, which forms are supported, fees, canceling a return, a list of supported states and state tax forms, and a place for changing one's email address or password. There's also a "contact us" button, which brings up a window to send a message to the support team.
Concerns:
The Social Security number is used as the person's username for logging into the software. Usernames are typically stored in an un-encrypted manner and can be easily seen. This is definitely not a best practice.
The software requires that the user provide the name, 5-digit pin, and telephone number for a third party designee. On a tax return, this is used – usually rarely – by the taxpayer to indicate that another person (such as mom or dad or family member or an accountant) can talk to the IRS about the information on that tax return. Filling this section out is optional on the actual tax return.
Free 1040 Tax Return, however, marks these fields as required, and there's no checkbox or other field to indicate that a person chooses not to fill out this section. For myself, I had to put "no one" and fake 5-digit pin and fake phone number just to navigate to the next screen.
Somehow, I had missed the page where the software asked about the health insurance I had during the year. I found this oversight by reviewing the draft tax return, where I saw that the software did not check the box on line 38 of Form 1040, but also it did not calculate the shared responsibility penalty. From the software's dropdown box, I was able to navigate to the health care coverage page and provide that information.
We are also concerned about the customer complaints about this software company. SiteJabber has 46 customer reviews for Free 1040 Tax Return, of which 41 customers rated the software one star and three customers rated the software two stars. The Better Business Bureau reports 16 complaints filed against the company, of which nine of the complaints were about problems with the product.
My First Impressions of the Software:
This is an alright software. It lacks guidance and instructional material. The questionnaires felt tedious almost right away. Rushing through the return using just one W-2, I had overlooked the important new questions about health insurance coverage. Curiously, the software didn't flag the health insurance question as something for me to review. In fact, the looking at that page more closely now, the question wasn't marked as required.
To check out the software for yourself, visit Free 1040 Tax Return Free File Edition.
This software is not yet rated.
Eligibility for free federal return: Individuals who have adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less, are age 70 or younger, and residing in any state except Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Washington or Wyoming.
Cost to prepare state tax return: $12.95.
Navigation and User Interface:
Free 1040 Tax Return uses a questionnaire-style interface. After choosing filing status, the program asks ten questions such as "Will you be claiming dependents?" or "Do you wish to itemize deductions?" The answers to these questions are used to tailor the rest of the program to the user's needs. However, it does seem a bit odd to ask questions to which someone might not immediately know the answer, such as whether they wish to itemize or whether they are eligible for the earned income credit. Also, the program asks three similar questions about healthcare coverage exemptions, and the questions look and sound repetitive.
This was followed by 19 questions about income and deductions. By this time I started to get frustrated. I'd like to dig in and start on my tax return please! Fortunately, the income and deduction questions were a lot more straightforward. This is followed by a page of eight questions about credits and expenses.
Help Features:
FAQs on the main Web site.
Online help inside the program consists of a message center, explanations of how to navigate the site, which forms are supported, fees, canceling a return, a list of supported states and state tax forms, and a place for changing one's email address or password. There's also a "contact us" button, which brings up a window to send a message to the support team.
Concerns:
The Social Security number is used as the person's username for logging into the software. Usernames are typically stored in an un-encrypted manner and can be easily seen. This is definitely not a best practice.
The software requires that the user provide the name, 5-digit pin, and telephone number for a third party designee. On a tax return, this is used – usually rarely – by the taxpayer to indicate that another person (such as mom or dad or family member or an accountant) can talk to the IRS about the information on that tax return. Filling this section out is optional on the actual tax return.
Free 1040 Tax Return, however, marks these fields as required, and there's no checkbox or other field to indicate that a person chooses not to fill out this section. For myself, I had to put "no one" and fake 5-digit pin and fake phone number just to navigate to the next screen.
Somehow, I had missed the page where the software asked about the health insurance I had during the year. I found this oversight by reviewing the draft tax return, where I saw that the software did not check the box on line 38 of Form 1040, but also it did not calculate the shared responsibility penalty. From the software's dropdown box, I was able to navigate to the health care coverage page and provide that information.
We are also concerned about the customer complaints about this software company. SiteJabber has 46 customer reviews for Free 1040 Tax Return, of which 41 customers rated the software one star and three customers rated the software two stars. The Better Business Bureau reports 16 complaints filed against the company, of which nine of the complaints were about problems with the product.
My First Impressions of the Software:
This is an alright software. It lacks guidance and instructional material. The questionnaires felt tedious almost right away. Rushing through the return using just one W-2, I had overlooked the important new questions about health insurance coverage. Curiously, the software didn't flag the health insurance question as something for me to review. In fact, the looking at that page more closely now, the question wasn't marked as required.
To check out the software for yourself, visit Free 1040 Tax Return Free File Edition.
This software is not yet rated.
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