Use This Very Specific IRS Service To Save Money During Tax Time

There’s a free tax program, but few people are apparently taking advantage of it. Pennygem’s Justin Kircher has the story.

Transcript

00:00 There's a free tax program, but few people are apparently taking advantage of it.

00:08 The bad news is that tax season kicks off on January 27th.

00:11 But the good news for those making under $69,000 per year is that there's a free program available

00:17 for state and federal returns.

00:19 According to MarketWatch, this free software service is available on at least 10 tax preparation

00:24 sites, including popular ones like H&R Block and TurboTax.

00:29 The IRS says that since it was first offered in 2003, an estimated $1.7 billion was saved

00:35 by those who took advantage of it.

00:37 However, an IRS watchdog called Taxpayer Advocate Service says that only about 2.5 million returns,

00:43 or less than 2 percent of individual returns, actually used it.

00:47 In an investigative report, ProPublica alleged that Intuit, which owns TurboTax and H&R Block,

00:53 buried their free file program links from users by taking measures such as using codes

00:58 to hide them from search engines.

01:00 The companies denied the allegations in the report, explaining to MarketWatch that they

01:04 were attempting to expand their free file program participation.

01:08 For its part, the IRS said it would look at changes to try and make the private and public

01:12 partnership more accessible to users.

01:15 Taxpayers who meet the income criteria for free filings can find links on the irs.gov

01:20 site.

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