Of course, this depends on a particular definition of free.

TurboTax for the Web is free this year, for everybody, but only if you go through this link: http://www.taxfreedom.com. It offers free e-filing for federal and $9.95 or $19.95 for state (EZ form vs. standard form).

TaxAct Online is also free: http://www.taxact.com. It'll prepare and print federal returns for free, and e-file federal and state returns for $7.95 each.

Thanks Otto

Article about this:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/...ree-file_x.htm

Okay, here's some more then:

eSmartTax - http://www.esmarttax.com/free2005.asp - Free for federal only, federal + state is $14.95.

1040Now - https://www.1040now.net/freefile.html - Free federal for anybody using a 1040EZ form, state is $9.95.

Several others, with varying restrctions, can be found here: http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?

Cool - thanks Otto!

It looks like if you go to the taxact site form the irs site is it free for the federal. Strange that the direct link would not have the same deal.

Quick dumb question - would those websites be good for me, being that I have to do this year's AND last year's as well. Question being, are those sites good for 2003?

For those in the state, Pennsylvania offers free state filing through this website:

https://pa.direct.file.state.pa.us

Did that..worked out fine for me last year

thansk!

I'm a little leery of filing my taxes this way. I'm worried about the privacy of my financial data and the difficulty of reconstructing my return in the future. I think I'd much prefer to do my own taxes in the privacy of my home, file the summary information electronically, and keep the original program and data file safe and sound offline. YMMV.

Edited to add:
Of course, if I can do my taxes offline and *then* e-file federal and state for free, I'd be interested.

I've used TurboTax for the Web for the last 3 years. After you e-file, you can download a printable PDF which is basically all the tax forms with the blanks filled in, if you want to keep hard copies or just keep the PDF file. I can still download those PDFs now in fact, all the way back to 2001 when I first used it.

So no real worries on that score. Just keep the printouts or the PDF files.

Cool. Thanks for the information.

I just wanted to bump this to say thanks for the information. I was able to e-file for free back on the 27th and received my tax return today via direct deposit.

I am expecting my Refund on Feb 11th via direct deposit

I was just using freetaxusa.com and I was entering in all of my information and I had a question.

I withdraw some money from my 401K plan and I did not see anywhere that I can enter the infomation.. I know I have to pay a penalty. Can I use this form?