#h&r block file free

[drbtinglecannon]

Just doing a last minute reminder to fellow usamericans to file your taxes before April 17th 2024, with a high recommendation you use the IRS free filing or one of the affiliate programs they have if you make less than 79k a year (because the more people use it the better, fuck Inuit TurboTax & H&R Block)

You will need to make an ID.me account which isn't really any more difficult than making any other login (you will need your SSN tho), but the filing itself was so simple it took me no time at all and was way faster than using TurboTax because the IRS site doesn't waste a bunch of time doing needless animations to "show your progress" while filing

I filed my taxes a week ago and I've already gotten both my federal and state returns direct deposited. I've never gotten my returns so quickly, it has never been so easy to file, and if people continue to use this service from the IRS it'll only get better.

Also important things to remember with tax season! The IRS will never call you with an automated response about your taxes, those are scam calls just ignore them, and if you do make a mistake while filing don't worry too much because the IRS will just quietly fix your return and either mail you the check/bill or direct deposit it. Happy filing! You got this!

[gydima]

I'm so grown up and responsible, y'all. I filed my taxes within HOURS of getting my W-2. And I'm getting a whole $364 back from the government! That's almost a dollar a day for the year, ooooh ahhhh!

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #16

April 26-May 3 2024

President Biden announced $3 billion to help replace lead pipes in the drinking water system. Millions of Americans get their drinking water through lead pipes, which are toxic, no level of lead exposure is safe. This problem disproportionately affects people of color and low income communities. This first investment of a planned $15 billion will replace 1.7 million lead pipe lines. The Biden Administration plans to replace all lead pipes in the country by the end of the decade.

President Biden canceled the student debt of 317,000 former students of a fraudulent for-profit college system. The Art Institutes was a for-profit system of dozens of schools offering degrees in video-game design and other arts. After years of legal troubles around misleading students and falsifying data the last AI schools closed abruptly without warning in September last year. This adds to the $29 billion in debt for 1.7 borrowers who wee mislead and defrauded by their schools which the Biden Administration has done, and a total debt relief for 4.6 million borrowers so far under Biden.

President Biden expanded two California national monuments protecting thousands of acres of land. The two national monuments are the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which are being expanded by 120,000 acres. The new protections cover lands of cultural and religious importance to a number of California based native communities. This expansion was first proposed by then Senator Kamala Harris in 2018 as part of a wide ranging plan to expand and protect public land in California. This expansion is part of the Administration's goals to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Department of Transportation announced new rules that will require car manufacturers to install automatic braking systems in new cars. Starting in 2029 all new cars will be required to have systems to detect pedestrians and automatically apply the breaks in an emergency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projects this new rule will save 360 lives every year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually.

The IRS announced plans to ramp up audits on the wealthiest Americans. The IRS plans on increasing its audit rate on taxpayers who make over $10 million a year. After decades of Republicans in Congress cutting IRS funding to protect wealthy tax cheats the Biden Administration passed $80 billion for tougher enforcement on the wealthy. The IRS has been able to collect just in one year $500 Million in undisputed but unpaid back taxes from wealthy households, and shows a rise of $31 billion from audits in the 2023 tax year. The IRS also announced its free direct file pilot program was a smashing success. The program allowed tax payers across 12 states to file directly for free with the IRS over the internet. The IRS announced that 140,000 tax payers were able to use it over their target of 100,000, they estimated it saved $5.6 million in tax prep fees, over 90% of users were happy with the webpage and reported it quicker and easier than companies like H&R Block. the IRS plans to bring direct file nationwide next year.

The Department of Interior announced plans for new off shore wind power. The two new sites, off the coast of Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine, would together generate 18 gigawatts of totally clean energy, enough to power 6 million homes.

The Biden Administration announced new rules to finally allow DACA recipients to be covered by Obamacare. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an Obama era policy that allows people brought to the United States as children without legal status to remain and to legally work. However for years DACA recipients have not been able to get health coverage through the Obamacare Health Care Marketplace. This rule change will bring health coverage to at least 100,000 uninsured people.

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized rules that require LGBTQ+ and Intersex minors in the foster care system be placed in supportive and affirming homes.

The Senate confirmed Georgia Alexakis to a life time federal judgeship in Illinois. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 194. For the first time in history the majority of a President's nominees to the federal bench have not been white men.

[bitchesgetriches]

Just finished filing my taxes with one of the IRS's free tax filing partners, how was that easier than using HR Block? I knocked it out in like 30 minutes today compared to like a whole morning with HR Block in past years

The best kept secret in government is how easier taxation COULD be... but isn't. H&R Block has a vested interest in convincing you it's super complex and time consuming so you'll keep paying for their services. Glad you took their bullshit and shoved it straight down their throats!

We're working on updating this, but most of the numbers haven't changed since last year:

How to File Your Taxes FOR FREE in 2022: Simple Instructions for the Stressed-out Taxpayer 

Did we just help you out? Tip us!

[griffle-musings]

Garth: hey y'all! What's-

-Dick & Wally having a massive fight-

Garth: what...what's happening?

Donna & Roy: Wally and Dick are fighting.

Garth: Seriously? Wally loves Dick!

Donna: Probably should rephrase that sentence, but yeah, they've been arguing all day.

Wally: Dick I'm sorry-

Dick: I just can't believe you! I trusted you! I trusted you Wally, and this how you repay me-

Wally: She means nothing, nothing baby, I promise, I promise-

Dick: So, what, you just go to her then? As if I wasn't the one who stood by you, helped you countless nights, who saved your ass far too many times to count-

Wally: I wanted to give you a break! You were recuperating, and it was just a one time thing, Dick-

Dick: *crying* That wasn't a break, it was a betrayal.

Garth:...what are they talking about?

Donna: Wally got his taxes filed through H&R Block last year instead of Dick filing them.

Roy: And Dick just found out.

Dick: *shrilly* Does Susan balance your checkbook better then?!!

Wally: I mean it's all electronic- I mean, no,nononono- Dick you're my main accountant, my one true financial guru- you gotta believe me, Dick, baby-

Garth:

Garth: Does Linda know about this?

Donna: Given that apparently Linda threatened Wally to "not return until you get Dick to file our taxes," I'm going with yes.

Roy: I can understand her feelings. Dick gets anyone the best tax return- and he does it for free.

Wally: *on his knees now* Dick, please, come back, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-

[copperbadge]

Do you have any good recommendations for cheap/free tax software?

So, I've seen posts going around about inexpensive tax software via the IRS, although last time I tried that (years and years ago) it just sent me to the "free" turbotax site, which was only free if you didn't need any special forms and now may not be free at all, I'm told a lot of people get charged hundreds by turbotax.

Most "free" sites are also only free if you earn less than a specific threshold, usually around $70K. The IRS has a list of options here, but I'm afraid I know nothing about any of them (readership, feel free to chime in by comment or reblog). IRS Free File is probably a good bet but I have no idea what their site is actually like, so I don't know if it's at all user friendly, and the one time I filed directly through the IRS I immediately fucked it up and owed them an extra $50 which they came after me for, so, you know. You get what you pay for.

After that first disastrous year, I just went to H&R Block and I've been filing there my entire adult life. They're very intuitive; they just ask you questions and you answer them, and they tell you how much you owe. I'm a homeowner and technically I own a small business, so I have to file extra weird forms, and I earn above threshold now anyway, so I just pay the $50 or whatever it is (the federal and state forms both cost a certain amount but they just take it out of my refund). That also means they store my previous year's return, so that I don't have to go digging for it to add its info into the next year.

I think this is super important: whatever you use, if at any point they show you a PDF of a completed tax filing form, SAVE IT. It is probably the only time you will see it and often if you want it later they'll charge you for it. SAVE THE COMPLETED FORM WHEN YOU SEE IT. Even if it's not an official document it has information you will need next year.

But yeah, I've filed with H&R Block for I think about 15 years now, first as a free user and now as a paid user, and I have no complaints. Otherwise I'm afraid I'm not much help, but hopefully the readership can offer resources!

[white-chalk-sapphomet]

first time trying to use one of the free IRS tax filing things instead of using turbo or H&R Block, they're reccomending like a handful, does anybody reccomend a particular one

[immaterial-girl]

btw if there are any other young americans out there who are extremely intimidated by filing your taxes and don’t know where to start, i really recommend H&R block. I use the free one because my taxes are pretty straightforward as a single person, and even when ive moved across state lines like 5 times i can still do it with H&R block for free

just go to their website, make an account, and you’ll have to click “yes i want to use the free version yes i promise NO i don’t want to give you money” a couple times but i find it really direct and simple and it walks you through the whole process in one sitting. it takes me less than one afternoon every year

[anastasiaoftheironwood]

Hello, American followers! If your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for 2022 is $73,000 or less, you can file your return for free via the IRS.

From the IRS website: The Guided Tax Preparation service provides free online tax preparation and filing at an IRS partner site. The partner delivers this service at no cost to qualifying taxpayers. Taxpayers whose AGI is $73,000 or less qualify for a free federal tax return.

Don't pay Intuit, or H&R Block. If your taxes don't require professional assistance, you don't need to pay to file!

[mossdeep]

tfw you spend like 30 mins verifying yourself to do your taxes for free through the irs only to be told HALFWAY THROUGH THE FORM that whoopsies!!! you can't actually file your taxes here!!! silly goose!!!!! go to h&r block and fuck yourself 😘

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

H&R block can kiss my ass. Motherfuckers charged me more to file than I'm getting back in return, even though I specifically used their free file service. They "upgraded" me to the deluxe service without my consent, and there was no mechanism to remove it and go back. Customer service was a waste of time, over an hour on hold just to be given the runaround by some call center dipshit reading from a script about how there was nothing he could do. I put off filing until the 11th hour because I thought I could just fill out my forms on paper and mail them to the IRS, but the system is so needlessly labyrinthine with hundreds of pages of and/or/if/iff instructions and tables and forms referencing other forms that it said I owed $1500 because I missed some lines buried deep in the fucling nested hellscape. I had to bite the bullet and pay H&R for no fucking reason, and them they tries to scam me out of even more money by saying they'd take the $55 fee out of my return; my return is only $33, and they wanted to charge an additional $39 convenience fee, so I opted the fuck out of that! I also had to opt out of spruce, their proprietary banking bullshit. Getting them to send me a paper check was like pulling fucking teeth! There are too many hoops to jump through, and that's entirely by design, just so they can squeeze as much money from you as possible. It's a multibillion dollar industry of horseshit! I made MORE money last year than the year before, but the government charged me LESS in taxes. What fucking sense does that make? I got a $500 refund last year, so why would that go down to $33?!?

I'm so mad it almost makes me want to become a Libertarian.

[justanotherfacet]

US Folks, it’s starting to be tax time again

And as your friendly (retired other than special cases) tax preparer, I’m gonna trash-talk pretty much ALL the big-boxes.

TurboTax: that whole “bring your paperwork, DON’T do your taxes” doesn’t mention that’s NOT a free service. (Also, when I was actively working, I’d generally get about 5 people towards the end of the season who were so jammed up by the self-file version that they were willing to pay my prep fees to get filed on time. I’ve never tried to do the “self-file with a LITTLE help from a pro” version so I can’t speak for whether that’s for-real free.)

H&R Block: they seem to be less awful LATELY, but I’m never forgetting that they literally got to rewrite the Earned Income Tax Credit code to a point that I couldn’t understand after 3 years pro and 2 years as a VITA volunteer. (The “you pass this test you don’t have to do training” that had a whole bunch of questions that had essentially no relevance to the neighborhood I’d have been working in that I flunked with about 3 years pro didn’t make me any more likely to refer folks to them as a company either.)

Got no clue on Liberty Tax as a company, but I can for-sure tell you that the franchise I “worked” for one season was shady and stuck me in a non-compete when they already knew “you know your tax stuff but you’re going to be neurodivergent every day ALLLL day” so I couldn’t even switch back to my prior crew who didn’t really care about the disability stuff and did schedule me.. (If you’re South Texan and want to know which one, ask me.)

I put all my professional time in at Jackson Hewitt, and while some of the folks I worked with were extremely good at their job, I definitely worked with some folks whose mistakes came back to haunt me because I was the one in the office when they needed to get their paperwork straightened out. (Also, last I heard they were settling a “we’re in cahoots with a semi-competitor to keep wages depressed” suit, which I would totally believe because I had one year when management straight-up told me I was wage-frozen at $11/hour. That’s about $4/hour under the living wage, and by April pretty much everybody in the biz qualifies for at least one mental health diagnosis even if they were relatively neurotypical in January, so it’s also a high-stress job even by retail standards imo.)

In my professional opinion, if you’re comfortable doing your own, Tax Act, Tax Slayer, and OLT (through irs.gov Free File) are all relatively straightforward and will allow you to enter a fairly large range of common tax documents (a couple will even let you file your state return for free if you need to.

(If you qualify for VITA or senior citizen-type tax assistance, that’s also a reasonable option, although it’s almost always a pain getting a slot.)

[takeiteasyjoan]

For those in the US, what site are you all using for filing state and federal taxes for free? This is our first year filing jointly after getting married, also. I know I've used h&r block in the past but I didn't see that one listed for free file. Could be wrong tho.

[the-sayuri-rin]

The IRS has been tasked with looking into how to create a government-operated electronic free-file tax return system for all. But that doesn’t sit well with the big tax-prep companies.

[bilesandthesourwolf]

Attention students filing taxes this year! Don't use turbo tax. They charge like 80 bucks to file your taxes so you can get the american opportunity tax credit. If you're eligible for the credit, use H&R block. They'll file for free and let you get the credit.