Free1040TaxReturnReviews 75

I got $85 more Federal refund and $68 more state refund using TaxAct due to Free1040TaxReturn not correctly including my HSA contribution on form 8889 and myhealth insurance premiums on the state tax form, respectively. I pointed this out to them and their canned response was "Your return is accurately calculated based on your input and current tax law. Please review your entries carefully." In many cases, they simply didn't ask enough questions to accurately calculate my taxes correctly. Their software needs to fix its many gaps!

As others have correctly pointed out, this website is listed by the IRS as free and it says the word FREE on top of each page. But after you spent all that time entering your data, that's when they surprise you with a significant filing charge!

Additionally, my state return was rejected three times and they charged me to re-submit it! When you message customer service (can't call since there's no phone number), they usually respond with one condescending sentence that doesn't even answer your question, such as, "Please read the screens when you login completely and carefully."

To top it off, they told me I was getting a refund, but when my forms were finally submitted to the state, it magically changed and now I owe money. When I asked why there was such a change, they respond with, "Your return is accurately calculated based on your input and current tax law." And don't even bother to ask this website to refund their charge unless you want more snark responses.

Save yourself the aggravation do not use this site under any circumstances!

Ruuuuun! IRS NEEDS TO SHUT THIS SITE DOWN! Extremely horrible customer service. I accidentally skipped a question about my spouses information and they processed my return even with the required fields not being filled in. The state return was rejected, but the federal went through fine. The spousal information was in the federal section of the return and now I can't complete my state return because there's nowhere to put my spouses information on the state questionnaire. Contacted customer service with no response. They say 24 hour response time, but haven't responded in a week with the tax deadline approaching. Terrible experience!

I am amazed at the long string of negative reviews here. They are unwarranted. I used free1040taxreturn.com to file two federal returns for 2013, one on behalf of a friend and my personal return. The refund of my friend was received via direct deposit. I just filed my return on 4/1/14, not long enough ago to have received my refund. In both cases, I filed for free. So, let me address this point since many of the reviews say it's not free. First, you MUST go to free1040taxreturn.com FROM irs.gov. If you just go directly to free1040taxreturn.com, it will not be free. Assuming you go to free1040taxreturn.com the proper way, you will not be charged to file the federal return. This is true for all the free e-filing services that have an agreement with the IRS; they must be accessed by the taxpayer from irs.gov to create the account on the e-filing website and complete the tax return.

If you identify a state in which you reside and that state requires an income tax return, then free1040taxreturn.com will charge a fee for filing the state return. If you identify your state and you do not want to file your state tax return via free1040taxreturn.com, you might find that the site seems to not let you complete the filing of your federal return; it appears to insist you can't go ahead and file your federal return without paying the fee to file your state return. Here's a trick that works. When prompted to click the drop down box showing a list of states, select "None of the above", the last item on the list. Then, you will be able to file the federal return for free and not be compelled to file a state return. If you had already passed that screen and you had selected a state, go back to that screen and change the selection to "None..." Of course, if you want to file your state return with them, then simply select your state and proceed.

Another comment in one of the reviews said "YOU CANNOT PRINT YOUR RETURN OR EVEN VIEW WHAT YOU ENTERED!" Not true! You can view your tax return on the site and you can save and/or print it; it is a PDF form. Until finally completed and accepted by the IRS, the form(s) will have a watermark to indicate they are not for mailing to the IRS. Once the federal return has been electronically filed and accepted by the IRS, the completed forms will appear on the site without the watermark. Last year, I used FileYourTaxes.com and the only printout I could get after completing the entry of data was a summary sheet showing key data elements such as total income, total deductions, AGI, taxable income, etc., but no tax form could be printed. So, free1040taxreturn.com is better in this regard. In addition to viewing and/or printing forms on free1040taxreturn.com, you can always go back through the screens and review data you entered. When you sign on to a previously started session, you have the option starting where you left off or starting at the beginning and going through the screens again. The reviewer that made the comment quoted at the beginning of this paragraph obviously was not very adept at navigating the site.

Like the others, we had a very bad experience with Free1040taxreturn.com. The federal income tax site was fine and there were no problems with filling out the form. The state tax site was a disaster. It kept glitching; I kept sending messages; they kept sending back what appeared to be a stock, computer-generated answer that didn't answer the question. I kept telling them there was a problem; they kept telling me it was my fault and that I wasn't reading the screen correctly. That wasn't the case. I finally thought that I would get the information I needed (whether we would get a refund or not), after I paid them. So, I paid them, they sent it off to the state and THEN I could see that the form was incorrect. We had to send in an amended form. Terrible customer service and terrible for state taxes. I will never deal with this company again.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!
I filed my return, saved a copy and waited and waited... no refund yet. So today I went back to their website to check my status and it stated that the IRS had accepted my return but no refund was due. When I viewed the form the numbers were nowhere near what I had entered and submitted and the form was a 1040EZ when I filed a 1040A. The only answer I get from customer service is "the form shows what you submitted and the system does not change information after the fact". I tried asking again and got the same answer. Looks like I will have to file an amended paper return and wait even longer. What a ripoff!