What a year it's been for the IRS! The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act triggered many changes in the tax code, as well as the issuance of several new forms. The 1040A and 1040EZ are gone, and the new 1040-for-all form is much abbreviated. There are six new schedules. All these changes for 2018 returns have kept accounting professionals and tax preparation software providers busy, to say the least.
Now it's your turn. Personal tax preparation websites are up and running, and the IRS is finally accepting returns (barring further government shutdowns). It's time to think about gathering up all your tax documents and plugging your numbers into a tax site, which thirty-seven pecent of you do for yourselves, according to a recent PCMag survey.
Tax software helps small businesses prepare & file their tax returns for a fraction of the cost of an EA/CPA. We looked at a range of possible tax software providers and found the top 5 best small business tax software providers.
If you're still doing your taxes manually—using paper forms, calculator, and pencil—you should really consider moving the process online. Our survey showed that (at least among people with enough computer savvy to take an online survey) only 10 percent of you were doing your taxes manually, and only half of those people were sending your taxes in via snail mail (the rest e-filing with the IRS directly). For those holdouts among you, new laws and new forms are complicating what was already a complex activity. They might even help you get a bigger tax refund!
A Smooth Transition
With all the changes that have occurred, what will you find when you log into H&R Block, TurboTax, TaxAct, or any of the other websites whose developers have been planning for the end of January 2019 for 13 months?
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If you've used a personal tax preparation website or desktop software before and you go back to that same product this year, you're not going to notice much of a difference. Every site we reviewed this year has made improvements, some more than others. But they're the usual modifications—user interface tweaks and enhancements to support resources and changes to prices and product lineups.
For the most part, this year's crop of contenders looks and works much as it did for the 2017 tax year. What's going on in the background as your tax data is calculated and rerouted to accommodate the new laws and forms, though, is very different. The companies that make today's leading tax sites worked extra hard in 2018—so that you don't have to in 2019.
What the New Tax Law Means for You
You've probably heard about at least some of the changes you'll be seeing for the 2018 tax year resulting from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. There are two that are likely to affect you the most. First is the lowering of individual tax rates. There are still seven brackets, but they've all been reduced. You'll be taxed at rates of 10, 12, 22, 24 32, 35, or 37 percent. Second, the standard deduction has been nearly doubled to $12,000 for single filers; $18,000 for heads of household; and $24,000 for joint filers.
Congress did eliminate the personal exemption, but positive changes to the Child Tax Credit may make up for at least part of this loss. If your medical and dental expenses made up more than 7.5 percent of your AGI (adjusted gross income) in tax year 2018, you'll be able to deduct them (the minimum was previously 10 percent).
It's not all good news for individual taxpayers, though. The tax reform law has placed a new limit on the deduction for state and local taxes. If you're paying home mortgage interest, you'll no longer be able to deduct it if your home is worth more than $750,000. Interest on home equity loans and lines of credit isn't deductible anymore, either, unless they're used to, '…buy, build, or substantially approve the taxpayer's home that secures the loan,' according to the IRS.
Those are just a few of the highlights of the new tax law. For more details on what it means for your tax-preparation and filing procedures, read Filing Your Taxes Isn't Simpler This Year: Here's What You Need to Know.
Tax Program For Mac CanadaHow Online Tax Software Works
When you prepare your income taxes using paper forms, you spend a lot of time shuttling back and forth between them. You come to a line on the 1040 that requires a supporting form or schedule, so you go there and complete it, and then transfer the number back to the 1040. Sometimes you'll need to fill out a worksheet or chase down a document you got in the mail or double-check your calculations because things just don't look right. You may have to do this many times if your return has any complexity.
Tax websites work much differently. Once you create an account and comply with the site's security requirements, you can stop worrying about which forms you need and whether your calculations are correct. You also won't need to worry about how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is going to affect your return. That's all taken care of for you in the background.
When you use a digital tax preparation solution, you're really just filling out a giant questionnaire. These sites work like giant wizards: They ask questions on every page, and you respond by providing answers. You enter information in blank fields, select the correct option from a list, or click a button. When you've satisfied all the requirements of a screen, you move on to the next and complete that. You never have to see an actual IRS form or schedule (though in some cases, you can if you want to).
You'll probably recognize the path you're taking. It's patterned after the order of the IRS Form 1040. You provide contact information first, including Social Security number(s) and birthdate(s), and then move on to your income, deductions, credits, health insurance status, and taxes paid. When you've exhausted all the topics that apply to you and seen a summary of your entries, these sites review your return and highlight errors or omissions you might have made.
After you've cleaned them all up, the software transfers your tax data to any state returns you must file. Once you've answered miscellaneous questions there and checked your entire return, you're asked to pay the service's fees (if there are any). Finally, you can file your return electronically and print it out. After that's done, don't forget to use a good shredder on those documents once you're done.
The Tax Software Interface and Process
Along the way, personal tax preparation websites provide a lot of support for you. After all, how helpful would they be if they just displayed replicas of the actual IRS forms and schedules on the screen and asked you to fill them in using the IRS instructions?
Instead, some of these solutions, such as H&R Block and TurboTax, provide state-of-the-art user experiences. They're designed to makes what is an unpleasant task more palatable. They use color, graphics, design, and layout to present screens that are lively and attractive, rather than dull and lifeless like the actual forms.
The step-by-step data entry path that they provide generally works quite well—as long as you work your way through your whole return without a lot of backing up or lurching forward. Jackson Hewitt Online asks whether you'd like to complete your 1040 by using its comprehensive interview; this option takes you through the entire process in one long Q&A session. It asks you about every tax topic that might possibly apply to you.
The other alternative, one that every online service offers, involves selecting the topics that apply to you. You choose these from the lists they provide for income, deductions, credits, and taxes. When you select one, these sites walk you through mini-interviews to get the information they need. Then they return you to the main list to choose another topic, and so on, until you're finished.
All of the sites we reviewed are a hybrid of these two approaches. The point is, all you have to do is read what's on the screen and follow its instructions. You spend most of your time responding to questions and clicking links to advance to the next screen or using the site-wide navigation tool. These sites are good guides, most of the time.
Speaking Your Language
If you've ever filed a tax return, you know it can be a challenge to understand the IRS's language on its forms and schedules. Turning to the written instructions sometimes doesn't help much. They're quite comprehensive—so comprehensive, in fact, that it's often hard to find the answer to your exact question. When you do find it, the language, again, can be difficult to decipher.
From their earliest days, personal tax software developers have sought to interpret IRS-ese and make it more understandable to the non-accountant. They've written and rewritten their content so that the average taxpayer can understand what's being requested. Further, sites like TaxAct do more. For example, they provide hyperlinks to small help windows that further explain a term or phrase. They anticipate questions you might ask and post Q&As on especially complex topics. They try to ensure that you understand the question being asked so that you'll provide the correct answer.
More Tax Help Needed?
Sometimes, though, a friendly, understandable user experience and clarification of the content displayed on screens isn't enough. So tax websites provide online assistance. Some, including H&R Block, provide context-sensitive explanations in panes attached to the main working area.
In some cases, this guidance isn't available until you click a Help link. And sometimes when you do that, you have access to a giant database of questions and answers. You may be directed to IRS instructions and publications on a few sites, but usually the technical content has been rewritten to make it understandable.
What do you do if your efforts to find help on the site itself fail? You might have one of several types of questions: The first goes something like, 'Where do I enter the information that's on this paper form I got?' Or, 'The site won't let me advance to the next page. What did I do wrong?' Or, simply, 'I'm stuck. I can't find my way back to the screen where I enter mortgage interest information.'
All sites offer at least one of three ways to contact the company's technical support representatives: by email, phone, and or chat. TaxSlayer, for example, offers all three. Some, like H&R Block, offer online communities where you can see if your problem has already been addressed by someone else.
These technical support representatives cannot advise you on points of tax law, though. So some offer to hook you up with an accounting professional. Though you'll pay extra fees, you'll get the most innovative, most comprehensive guidance if you use TurboTax. Its TurboTax Live offering connects you with a CPA or EA (Enrolled Analyst) via live video chat, not just during tax season but year-round. H&R Block users can add unlimited, on-demand screen-sharing and chat sessions with a tax expert for an added fee that starts at $39.99, and customers of TaxAct Deluxe and above receive unlimited phone support from tax specialists.
Are There Any Free Tax Services?
Prices for this year's tax websites range from free to over $100. It turns out that you can get a lot for free. According to our tax survey, seventeen percent of you use free services, in fact. Twenty percent of you use paid software. Every company whose website we reviewed (except Liberty Tax Online) offers a version that costs nothing to prepare and file your federal taxes. All support the new Form 1040 and assume you'll be taking the standard deduction. You can record—or import, in some cases—your W-2 data in all of them.
Each goes even further than that in some ways. H&R Block is the most generous in its free offerings among the normally paid services. Block supports retirement plan and Social Security income, child care expenses and child tax credit, the Earned Income Credit (EIC), and student loan interest. TaxAct, too, allows retirement income, while TurboTax lets you report limited interest and dividend income, the EIC, and child tax credits. Using TaxSlayer, you can enter your student loan interest and education credits. And Jackson Hewitt's free edition will prepare and file the EIC, unemployment, interest income, and up to $100,000 taxable income.
Two of the online tax services we reviewed are free (or nearly free): Credit Karma Tax and FreeTaxUSA. Both support all major IRS forms and schedules. FreeTaxUSA costs nothing unless you need to file a state return; that will cost $12.95. You can also buy enhanced support for $6.99. Credit Karma Tax is the only personal tax preparation website that is totally free, for both federal and state.
Not for Everyone
The eight personal tax preparation websites we reviewed are capable of producing very complex tax returns. You'll pay more if you need more forms and schedules to complete (we reviewed the most popular versions, which in some cases were not the most robust), but the tools are there for advanced topics like self-employment, depreciation, rental income, and capital gains.
If you're not comfortable with your own ability to complete a complicated tax return but still want to give it a shot, you can go with a site like H&R Block. The company offers DIY preparation and filing, of course. But if you get partway through and realize you're not sure of some tax issues, you can have an H&R Block tax professional review your return, complete it, and sign it.
If you're so uncomfortable with taxes that you've procrastinated a bit too much, we have some suggestions for you. Our article Tax Tips for Last-Minute E-Filers is for the one in seven of you who wait till the tax deadline has nearly arrived.
Stay Safe, Protect Your Privacy
Whenever you're going to be sending sensitive information over a network you don't control, you should be concerned. Since taxes are nothing but sensitive data, you ought to be doubly concerned if you're filing from a coffee shop, say, or the airport. About half of you get this, it seems, as our tax survey shows that 47 percent of those who use online tax software are concerned about their data being compromised.
Fortunately, protecting your traffic is as simple as using a VPN. A VPN can create a secure tunnel that encrypts your data, ensuring that anyone who manages to intercept it sees only gibberish.
No amount of security software can keep you safe if you fall for a telephone, email, or in-person tax scam, however. Scammers often rely on you to simply tell them what they want to know, instead of by getting it out of your computer with malware. Instead, they simply pretend to be someone, say the IRS, who you'd likely believe might have a reason to be inquiring, and ask you for your secret information or for payments on imaginary fees you supposedly owe. Read our piece on how to protect yourself from tax-season scams and save yourself money and heartache.
What Is the Easiest Tax Software to Use?
If this is the first time you've ever considered tackling this project yourself, we recommend H&R Block, our Editor's Choice, this year. TurboTax has won this award numerous times in the past, and it also remains an exceptional family of digital tax products. H&R Block, though, has improved its website in numerous ways since last year. It offers a more state-of-the-art user experience, with exceptionally accessible, understandable guidance. That support and guidance makes a complex process easy—or at least easier. It's fast, it's a great value, it's built on decades of tax knowledge, and it's the best for the 2018 tax year.
Note that H&R Block wins for the best desktop software. If you're going to fill out your taxes on your mobile device—yes, that's right, you can do your taxes on your phone—you'll want to try out Intuit's TurboTax Return App, which is our number one choice for mobile tax filing thanks to its excellent interface and accessible, innovative help options.
While you're thinking about your financial situation and you have all your documents about you, we suggest that you also take a look at our roundup of the best personal finance services. The best day to start a budget is yesterday, but today isn't bad, either. If you're a business owner, it's also a good time to make sure your books are in order. Our overview of small business accounting software is an excellent place to get started.
Best Tax Preparation Software Featured in This Roundup:
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The simple reality of tax preparation software is this: You want to get the greatest possible refund with the least chance of an audit, all without requiring you to be a tax genius. In the not-so-distant past, the only option I considered for preparing my taxes was paying $250 to sit at a tax prep office while someone went through my numbers. But then I found out that the professionals I paid used software similar to what I could buy for my Mac. While some tax preparation may still require you to use a tax professional, these days, professional quality tax preparation is just a few dollars and a download away.
While there are a number of online options for preparing taxes, if you prefer to use software installed on your Mac instead of a Web-based app, then there are really only two contenders for your tax prep dollars: H&R Block and Intuit’s TurboTax. Both of these apps come in several different flavors designed to meet your specific tax filing requirements, but for the purposes of this review we looked at the top level tax prep applications, H&R Block Premium and TurboTax Premier, as they both include everything you need to file your personal taxes, even if your filing needs are somewhat complicated.
If accuracy is important—when it comes to taxes, you better bet that it is—then there’s not much to worry about with either of these two applications. After entering a basic set of numbers, including W-2 income, college tuition expenses, interest and dividend income, mortgage interest, and a variety of other bits of income and expense information, H&R Block Premium and TurboTax came back with numbers that were exactly the same for my state return and within a dollar of each other for my federal return.
From my perspective, simplicity is the key to tax prep software. What simplifies the tax filing process is a subjective assessment, but for me simplicity means the application dispenses a minimum of tax jargon while walking you through the process of entering income and expense information, and eliminates confusion as to whether you’ve included all the forms you need and provided all the information necessary to avoid an audit and still get the best possible refund. In short, the best tax app should instill confidence by giving you a sense that everything you’ve done is complete and correct.
While H&R Block has a much improved interview process, TurboTax is, hands down, the better of the two applications when it comes to instilling this kind of confidence. Both applications use a step-by-step process to guide you, but the H&R Block application tends to use pages filled with checkboxes to determine which questions you’ll be asked and those you won’t. TurboTax’s interview process asks questions one at a time and then, depending on how you answer, walks you through specific tax questions based upon your answers. While the end result was the same, I found that TurboTax’s question and answer format left me less worried that I’d left something undone.
While the H&R Block interview process was not as clear, the H&R Block application offers stellar, free, live, online access to tax professionals who can walk you through sticky points of your tax return. (They also offer live tech support as well.) These services are very simple to use and allow you to ask specific questions about your tax situation and get almost immediate answers.
TurboTax offers a context-sensitive help system that determines where you are in the interview process and tailors answers you see to the area you’re working in. You also have access to the TurboTax community, but this seemed to be more of an online forum consisting of TurboTax users. H&R Block’s online assistance came from tax professionals and was detailed and personal.
One of my favorite new features in this year’s version of TurboTax explains why it is that your return has changed after you’ve entered information. While the explanation isn’t detailed and it doesn’t go over the specifics of the tax laws that affect the changes you see, it does give you insight into why you see the changes you do. This is also true when information you’ve entered doesn’t change your return. For example, if you enter something that you think should have reduced your taxable income and it doesn’t, TurboTax will tell you why.
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One important note about these apps: Both come with state tax forms, but TurboTax Premier allows you to file your state taxes as part of the price you pay for the application. H&R Block Premium, while it costs less up front, will charge $20 for each new state return you file.
Bottom line
Since the final result is exactly the same whether you’re using TurboTax Premier or H&R Block Premium, it’s user experience that is the trump card with these apps. With that in mind, even though H&R Block’s software has a much better user interface than it did last year, it is TurboTax that offers the better and least confusing tools for getting your taxes filed. While H&R Block Premium is closer to offering an equal experience, TurboTax Premier is still the best, easiest way to file your personal taxes.
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