The Internal Revenue Service and tax preparation services have an agreement where if you make a certain amount and there are certain things on your tax return, you get to file your return for free.
The income limits, at least on an adjusted gross income perspective, make which tax preparation service you can file taxes with for free make it obvious. But, there are other things that you should know about the eligibility requirements of each tax preparation service. Check which tax preparation service you’re able to file taxes – even if it’s not your preferred choice, filing your return electronically for free is much better than paying for it or preparing a paper return.
List of available free file tax preparation services
If your income is below $72,000, you can use the following tax preparation services to submit your return electronically for free.
- Online Taxes
- ezTaxReturn
- FileYourTaxes
- TaxAct
- TaxSlayer
- 1040NOW
- FreeTaxUSA
- TurboTax
- Free1040TaxReturn
Why e-file federal income tax returns?
When we’re thinking about filing a paper tax return and e-filing, the pros outweigh the cons by a significant margin.
First and foremost, it takes less time for the Internal Revenue Service to process your return, thus, creating short turnovers for getting your tax refunds. It will also save your time preparing your tax return as the math and calculating the deduction and credit amounts are automatically based on your AGI. For example, if you can get 20 percent of tax credit due to the adjusted gross income, you won’t need to do the math yourself as it’s done automatically by the tax preparation services. Having said that, it saves you a lot of time and takes some of the work off of your hands.
It can take anywhere between four and six weeks to get your refund with a mailed-in return whereas it takes less than three weeks in most cases with e-filed returns. This quick process makes filing a tax return electronically much more attractive in comparison to mailing it. We highly suggest using the IRS lookup tool to find which tax preparation services you can use to file your electronic federal tax return.