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Do your taxes online. For free.
Okay, January's almost over. That means that you probably have all of your tax forms by now: your W-2s, your 1099's, and so on. And you're starting to see ads all over the place for That Green Square Company That Has People, and for That Fast Software Company. Yep, it's tax season.
But I'd like to offer you an alternative to those places. You see, my company has long produced internet-based tax software and government benefit application software to help lower and mid-income people do their taxes and apply for benefits for free. It's a wonderful program that I'm proud to work for, and we've helped connect many people in need to money and other services. But one drawback to our program was that it's always been counselor-assisted. You had to go to a clinic and sit down with a counselor to use the program. Great if you live near a clinic, and great if you aren't computer-literate, but less useful for those of you reading this.
Well, that's not a problem anymore. This season, we've completed a pre-release of the self-serve version of our software, currently called Sidney. (Sidney's a cute robot.) With this program, almost anyone who made under $52,000 this year can file their federal taxes online for free, among the first 75,000 to sign up. Additionally, we offer state taxes in 5 states (PA, MD, MS, DC, and OH), and many other states don't have state tax returns. So probably half of you reading this can use our program to do ALL of your taxes. It's quite easy to use; we aim for high usability and easier reading levels. It's obviously a lot cheaper than many other places. And I'd love for you to try it out. And tell your friends, especially if you make too much money to qualify, since you probably know lots of people under the limit.
So go check it out! I'd love to hear your feedback.
But I'd like to offer you an alternative to those places. You see, my company has long produced internet-based tax software and government benefit application software to help lower and mid-income people do their taxes and apply for benefits for free. It's a wonderful program that I'm proud to work for, and we've helped connect many people in need to money and other services. But one drawback to our program was that it's always been counselor-assisted. You had to go to a clinic and sit down with a counselor to use the program. Great if you live near a clinic, and great if you aren't computer-literate, but less useful for those of you reading this.
Well, that's not a problem anymore. This season, we've completed a pre-release of the self-serve version of our software, currently called Sidney. (Sidney's a cute robot.) With this program, almost anyone who made under $52,000 this year can file their federal taxes online for free, among the first 75,000 to sign up. Additionally, we offer state taxes in 5 states (PA, MD, MS, DC, and OH), and many other states don't have state tax returns. So probably half of you reading this can use our program to do ALL of your taxes. It's quite easy to use; we aim for high usability and easier reading levels. It's obviously a lot cheaper than many other places. And I'd love for you to try it out. And tell your friends, especially if you make too much money to qualify, since you probably know lots of people under the limit.
So go check it out! I'd love to hear your feedback.
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Ultimately I had a good experience with the program, but during the initial quiz about forms I found myself checking "yes" to things that seemed right based on the short description and/or form name (although maybe I should have checked "I don't know"). This lead to a lot of frustrated backtracking.
Perhaps it should have an option to the effect of "If you already know the forms you do and do not need to file, please use the radio buttons to let us know. If you aren't sure, we will prompt you for each form as we progress through your return." I highly preferred the fully detailed explanation pages to appear one at a time, but I'm sure not everyone would agree.
Also I feel that if you click "What if I accidentally" it should either offer you the offending check box directly, or send you specifically to the page it appeared on. Also, the map of progress should have subheads for each individual page, as I had to keep retreading entire sections.
The instructions and help for "Amount of State and Local Income Taxes" was incredibly confusing, even though I knew exactly what it was talking about.
Otherwise, everything was extremely smooth. I especially liked the way it handled the itemized vs. standard deductions.
no subject