Last year, as well as this year, I used Turbo Tax's Freedom program to file our Federal tax returns for free and because Ohio wasn't a participator, I paid $10 for Turbo Tax to do my State forms too. Some states do participate and you can fill out your forms for free. To qualify for this free service you must: have a Gross Income of $30,000 or less, be an active military member that Grossed $56,00 or less, or be able to apply for the Earned Income credit this year. Our family did qualify and I was able to use a top of the line service for free!
There are other free tax services you can find through the IRS website for lower income families, however, I felt that I wanted to go with a big name I knew I could trust. Last year, my husband was both a contractor and an employee, so our taxes were very complicated with write offs and milage and such. I highly recommend Turbo Tax (no, I'm not getting anything to say any of this) because they ask simple questions, you answer them, they tell you your refund amount and then automatically check for any errors. I think it took me about an hour to complete both our Federal and State forms this year.
Information it will help you to round up and have in front of you:
- Personal information for you and your spouse
- Social Security numbers for anyone being listed, including dependents
- w-2, 1099, Interest statements issued by your bank and any other forms you have regarding your income for the year
- Last year's tax forms for both Federal and State
- This year, you need to list the amount of stimulous money you received in May. It's not taxable and didn't seem to change anything, but you need to list it none the less
That's about it! I hope your taxes go as smoothly and beneficially as ours did this year!
1 comments:
The reason you need to list the amount of your stimulous money is so they can evaluate if you'll get some more. We didn't qualify for the full amount according to our 2007 return but our 2008 return does qualify for the whole amount so we get the rest back in our refund.
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