I had stated in February that one of my goals was to finish my taxes. Well, it ended up taxing me until the beginning of April but I finally did it. Once I finished I received a pretty substantial refund which I am slightly embarrassed for not claiming earlier and losing out on a few months worth of interest. I would adjust my deductibles but my taxes next year will be completely different as I most likely will be filing as married instead of single.

I ended up using a combination of programs to complete my taxes, which can be pretty complicated due to a home office, partnership, and home sale. I ended up doing the preliminary numbers in TurboTax which I have been using for years. Then I searched online for a place that would let me e-file for less than the $14.95 TurboTax wanted.

Most places require you to have an AGI under $52,000 to qualify for their free e-file program. However I stumbled upon TaxAct which lets you e-file for free with no restrictions. Even the basic version of the online program gave me everything I needed - from what I read it looks like the only thing you received with the deluxe version was additional guidance on how to fill in the forms. It worked like a charm and I was able to get an exact match to my TurboTax refund.

I ended up mailing in my state taxes as I couldn’t justify spending $15 to e-file those. According to the IRS E-file Chart I should get my refund this Friday which is going right into my HSBC online savings account.