Until this year, I have actually never filed my own taxes. My dad’s always taken care of it for me, and Jay’s too actually. It’s just been easier that way. However, after some issues last year, I decided it was time to learn to file my own taxes.
I had no idea there were so many tax filing options! A quick hop over to NerdWallet, which is where I do most of my financial research, and I decided I was going to use TaxAct. Even with the house purchase last year, I don’t have enough things to itemize so I was okay sticking with the free version.
About fifteen minutes later, I had a confirmation screen that my return had been submitted. The only difficulty I had was getting through the security questions to verify who I was, but thankfully my 2017 tax return wasn’t that hard to find thanks to the multiple times I had to submit it to my lender for the mortgage.
Then I tried to file Jay’s taxes, and that didn’t go quite as well.
Jay’s employer provides something known as a Health Savings Account. He gets money every year to be spent on certain approved medical purchases. TaxAct will not let you file for free if you have a Health Savings Account.
Well, I wasn’t going to just pay for it without investigating further. We have lots of friends with Health Savings Accounts, and I couldn’t remember any of them ever saying they paid to file their taxes.
Turns out TurboTax will let you file for free if you have a Health Savings Account. It pops up the same warning message and recommends you pay for the paid version, but it will still let you file them without the upgrade. TurboTax is also associated with Mint.com, which is the website I use to manage my finances in the first place.
You can sign up for TaxAct here, and TurboTax here, and I will get $10 for referring you. It also gets you a discount if you need any of the paid options!
TurboTax, TaxAct, and even H&R Block and TaxSlayer are all on Ebates. Now if you don’t need a paid version, you’re not going to see any cashback, but I always hit the button just in case. You never know! You can read my full Ebates review here, but it’s amazing and if you sign up you get $10, and I get credit for referring you.
If you’ve never done it before, taxes seem super scary. Turns out they’re not that bad. Although I still haven’t worked out how I file my Duffys as dependents.
