Free online tax filing??? Anyone know a good one?

[redhen]

Quote:
As for the exemption of the child that is according to who has legal custody and if the father does not and claims custody he will be in big do do with the IRS.

IRS does not care who has custody.....they care who supported the child.

1) child must have lived with the claimer/filler for at least 6 months in the tax year they are claiming the child in

Even if the court orders....in a parenting plan or a divorce decree that a certain parent gets to claim the child.

It is still not allowed by the IRS if the child did not live with that person for a min. of 6 months in the year they are filling.

Lots of people have children and do not have court custody orders etc.

I agree too that turbo tax is the best and it is what I use too.

I agree.. I am a foster parent and i am able to (sometimes) claim the children. As long as they are under 16 and have lived with us for 6 months that tax year, i can claim them.
Has nothing to do with legal custody.
Actually, one year some dirt bag father clamied his kid that i had living here... (the kid hadnt lived at home for years

)..,but the father was still legal guardian.

So anyways,...when i claimed the child the IRS saw that the child had already been claimed by the father
. I reported the father for fraud and was able to provide proof that i had the child in my care for 6 months, NOT him.
So.. i got my refund and the father had to pay back some money.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

FYI, the IRS has new guidelines regarding tax preparers. Yes, some companies will pretty much hire anyone. But I know for a fact that Block requires a good amount of training, more than what is required by law. I know most states don't regulate tax preparers, but with the new federal guidelines, you should be able to start trusting paid preparers a bit more... Many CPAs actually aren't trained in tax law, and while they may offer the service, there's no guarantee the return is accurate. Make sure your CPA actually specializes in taxes. I've seen some pretty odd mistakes done by CPAs... And actually, a lot of CPAs will hire tax preparers during tax season to do the returns for them, so your CPA might not actually be the one working on your return.

H&R Block's 1040 EZ is great, but your daughter doesn't qualify for an EZ if she's claiming any dependents. She will probably use a 1040A.

What I would recommend is if she uses a free online service (I believe TaxACT is free for everyone), call your local H&R Block and ask them about their Second Look. I can't speak for their pricing nationwide, but I know that in my area, those are being done for free, and if the return is correct, you'll get their guarantee, which means in case of an audit, Block will help you through it at no cost. Especially in your daughter's situation where the chances of IRS involvement are higher, its not a bad thing to have.

And yes, it does matter who files first, at least in the short term of it all. If she's legally entitled to claiming the child, she should try to e-file as soon as possible if there is going to be an issue. If the father claims the child and files first, then when she goes to file, it will be rejected, and she will either have to remove the child from her return, or mail in her return, which will cause the IRS to open a dispute and look into it. This will delay her refund significantly.

It would be a good idea for her to start collecting documents that prove she is entitled to claim the child (birth certificate, school records, doctor records, lease agreement or utility bills to show proof of residence, etc). Just in case there is an issue, it can easily be resolved by faxing or mailing copies of these documents to the IRS. No need to make it a long drawn out process on your end.

Hope this makes some sense... I just got home from the dentist (2 root canals, yuck) and the vicodin is kicking in...

 

[jen5680]

Thank you all so much for your help!!

 

[WVchick71]

I use H&R Blocks online free one. I have used it for about 6 years and its been great.

 

[EweSheep]

At hubby's request, we have been using the H & R for our taxes and only one time they goofed and they gave our money back and double the income tax refund!

However it didn't happen again so we were happy with the services they have given us. However, the fees were getting higher and higher and we were not making more than $21,000 a year, had to pay $350 for their fee out of our $2,200 income tax returns. So we dont know if we want to pay that again for so little we were making off of food stamps and so forth.

This year, we do not know where or what we will do with the taxes. I wanted to go back and let my Dad prepare taxes for us like I had before we got married. He was an accountant in his college days and so was my sister, she can do them too.

I am a little worried about our taxes, since hubby had three jobs this year, two of his jobs had higher taxes listed on his paycheck stubs for his fed and state income taxes. With this job he now has, the fed and state taxes, he claimed three, are so much lower and a few times, with less than a 40 hour work week, they took NOTHING out of his wages, except for SS, insurance, and other thing but left the fed tax alone and state tax alone. Someone told me it is now the new law that once we take insurance, government will reduce taxes. Well, we do like to bring home more money but also like to bring more income tax. I do not want to end up paying taxes, we never did want that.

Now we have to wait and see what's the results would be and if Dad or H&R tells us that we need to inform the employer that the taxes were taken out wrong, then we will go back to hubby's employer and let them know of the mistake.

 

[EweSheep]

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Do they charge you?

 

[arabianequine]

Quote:
Do they charge you?

No they don't charge you but I recommend tubotax.com and free too for efile. Just follow the tutorial and it will fix errors and stuff for you too. I would be happy to answer and questions for you just pm me.

You can stop and save anytime and come back to your return too.

 

[EweSheep]

Will try that tubotax. Everyone around me uses it LOL!

 

[booker81]

Quote:
The "Making Work Pay" tax deal in 2009 and 2010 resulted a big reduction in federal taxes for many folks, depending on income and withholdings. You can pull up the fed withholding chart and verify the amount that should be withheld, based on pay schedule, adjusted gross pay (the amount of the paycheck after "pre-tax" withholdings are taken out), and the number of withholdings.

Most likely, the employer followed the correct withholdings, but if you need help verifying, shoot me a PM

 

[arabianequine]

Social security withholdings....you take your gross income from that employer you are figuring and x it by 6.2% that is what it should be on your w2 in the social security tax with held/#4 box of your w2.

Medicare withholdings....you take your gross income and x it by 1.45% that is what the amount should be on your w2 in the medicare tax with held/#6 box of your w2.