In a tough economy people are trying to spend less. The cost of TurboTax on average is about $60 for a federal and state income tax return with efile. Compare that to going to a tax store for about $180 and there is a noticeable savings. Time is also saved. Instead of waiting at a tax store for hours on end during peak tax season, TurboTax Online and TurboTax software editions are available 24/7. You can prepare your taxes from home while the kids watch TV or do their homework.

Most first time users find that TurboTax is very easy to use. You simply follow the prompts and answer the questions. There is no guessing at which tax deductions and tax credits that you deserve. Feedback and community help from users is available on the TurboTax website. See for yourself why TurboTax tax software sales are rising year after year.

TurboTax Free edition is available for online filing only, it is not a TurboTax download or CD tax software edition.

If you have never used TurboTax before, the TurboTax online editions are the best for you. Consider for example that you do not have to pay until you are satisfied and wish to print or efile your income tax return (premium online editions require payment, not the free edition). If you purchase the software by download or CD ROM, you don’t get the same satisfaction guarantee because you would have already received your software and used it.

TurboTax Free Edition benefits for online users:

• TurboTax Free Edition — Free preparation, free printing, free efile.
• Get the biggest tax refund possible, guaranteed by TurboTax.
• Free TurboTax Audit Support Center and live TurboTax online help.

TurboTax Free Edition walks you step-by-step through your income tax return and provides guidance designed for people who are new to income tax software. TurboTax Free Edition will ask you questions and put your answers to those questions onto your income tax forms. When you are finished you simply click to efile or print your income tax return.

TurboTax Free Edition and discounts for other popular TurboTax software CD and download editions are available on our site. Visit our TurboTax Free web page to get started or to learn more.

State Sales Taxes

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act permits taxpayers to take tax deductions for state and local sales and excise taxes paid on the purchase of new cars, light trucks, motor homes and motorcycles. This special recovery effort tax deduction is available on new vehicles purchased from Feb. 17, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2009. In states without sales tax, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides a tax deduction for other taxes or fees paid.

Dividend Reinvestment

If you own mutual funds with automatic dividend reinvestment, you must remember that each dividend reinvestment increases your tax basis in the mutual fund. Increasing tax basis reduces your taxable capital gain when you sell shares. TurboTax Premier and Home & Business tax software editions include  Cost Basis Lookup tools that calculate your tax basis and make sure you get full credit for dividend reinvestment plans.

Charitable Contributions

Most likely you will add in any big charitable gifts you made during the tax year, however, little charitable contributions can add up too. You can deduct out of pocket costs incured   while doing good deeds, but remember to keep your receipts. Food ingredients and related expenses used to cook for a nonprofit organization’s soup kitchen. Cost of stamps purchased for your child’s school fundraiser. These and other out of pocket costs count as a charitable contribution. Likewise if you drive your car to support a charity, you can deduct the per mile rate.

Student Loan Interest

In the past if parents made payments on a student loan for the benefit of their children, neither student nor parent got a tax deduction. The law previously stated that you had to be both liable for the debt and pay for it yourself. Now there is an exception. If parents make payments on the student loan, it is treated as if the parents gave the money to the child who then paid the debt themselves. A child not claimed as a dependent can now qualify to deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest paid by themselves or parents.

Job Hunting vs. Moving Expense

Job hunting expense incurred while looking for your first job may not be a tax deduction, however, moving expenses to get to your first job are tax deductions. Even if you don’t itemize you can claim this tax deduction. For 2009 if you moved more than 50 miles you can deduct 24 cents per mile as a cost of getting yourself and your belongings to the new location. Parking fees and tolls are additional moving expenses.

Property Tax Deductions

If you paid property taxes but don’t want to itemize, you can qualify for an additional standard deduction of up to $500 or $1,000 if married filing jointly. This benefit was available in 2008 and extended into the 2009 tax year. There are no income limits to claim this property tax standard deduction boost.

Child Care Credit

If you pay your child care bills through a reimbursement account at work, you might be overlooking an extra $1,000 in child care credit. The child care credit allows you up to  $5,000 of expense through a tax favored reimbursement account at work. However, the child car credit limit is $6,000. Therefore if you use the maximum $5,000 through a plan at work and spend more for work related child care, you may qualify to claim the child care credit up to an extra $1,000.

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

It’s estimated that 25% of taxpayers who are eligible for the earned income tax credit fail to claim it. Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC is a refundable tax credit which ranges from $438 to $4,824. The EITC credit supplements wages for low to moderate income households. Millions more individuals and families considered to be middle class may now qualify because of job loss, pay cuts, or fewer part time hours worked.

State Tax Paid

Remember to include the tax amount you paid your state last year along with state income tax withheld from paychecks or paid quarterly by estimated payments.

Refinancing Points

If you paid point to buy a house, you get to deduct points paid to obtain your mortgage. If you refinance a mortgage, you deduct the points over the life of the loan, not all at once. If you pay off the loan early, because you sell the house or refinance again, you can deduct all the points not yet deducted unless you refinance with the same lender.

Jury Duty Pay

Selected for jury duty? If your employer pays you full salary while on jury duty but ask you to turn over jury duty pay to the company, the jury duty fees are considered taxable income. You will need to deduct the amount given to your company so that you are not taxed on it.

Itemized deductions can seem confusing and endless at times. That’s when income tax preparation software can help. TurboTax can help ensure that you don’t miss the above itemized deductions or other tax credits you deserve. Get your biggest refund, guaranteed, when you use TurboTax edition software.

You can try the TurboTax Online edition for free and pay only if you decide to print or efile. First time users of TurboTax should try the online edition for this reason – you can try it free. For more pricing and discount information please visit our TurboTax web page.

• Keep receipts for home improvements.
• Mortgage interest, lender points, property taxes, and interest on home improvement loans are all tax deductible.
• When you purchase or sell a home, make copies of any  agreements and store the copy in your income tax folder.

Tax forms and instructions offer some help while trying to figure out your home tax deductions, however, they don’t automatically compare your standard deduction versus itemized deduction, nor alert you to other home tax deductions available to you.

If home tax deductions are giving you a headache, try TurboTax Deluxe or H&R Block Deluxe editions. The Deluxe edition prices range from $25 to $35 and usually the price increases the closer we get to April 15. Common home tax deductions supported by both the TurboTax Deluxe and H&R Block Deluxe software are:

• Home improvement tax deductions.
• Second home tax deductions.
• Home equity loan tax deductions.
• Property tax credits.
• Home purchase tax deductions.
• Selling home tax deductions.
• Capital gains tax calculations.
• Claiming first time home buyer tax credits.
• And more.

Don’t forget that you can get discounts to TurboTax and H&R Block products on our website.

Turbo Tax Premier

Turbo Tax Premier edition is recommended for those with investment related income during the tax year. An example of investment income is if you received a consolidated form 1099 from your broker, which reports Interest Income (Form 1099-INT), Dividends and Distributions (Form 1099-DIV), Proceeds From Broker & Barter Exchange Transactions (Form 1099-B), and Miscellaneous Income (Form 1099-MISC). Turbo Tax Premier also handles 401k contributions, retirement, and rental property deductions.

Turbo Tax Premier will:

• Import your investment information directly from your financial institution to help save time.
• Walk you through sale of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and calculates capital gains and losses.
• Report employee stock plan  transactions and provide tax guidance.
• Show you the benefit of increasing 401k contributions so that you can save even more on taxes.
• Find rental property deductions like travel, advertising, repairs, insurance and others that you might overlook.
• Maximize home refinancing deductions such as reporting points, appraisal fees, costs and more.
• Explain the impact of job changes, getting married, buying a new home, having a baby, and other common life changes.

For a limited time only you can get up to 40% off the regular price for Turbo Tax editions. Use the special offer link on our Turbo Tax review web page which doesn’t require a coupon code.  Hurry to get the up to 40% off discount special offer because the Turbo Tax Premier and other Turbo Tax software edition prices usually increase once the tax season is in full swing

TurboTax Online Software Comparison and Price

TurboTax let’s you try their online software for free which is an additional benefit compared to purchasing the download or CD editions. For this reason first time users might prefer a TurboTax Online software edition. You only pay if and when you file your income tax return. Once you complete your federal tax return, you can chose to transfer your tax filing information to the TurboTax State online software edition that matches the federal edition you wish to purchase for an additional charge.

For more information and to check for any special offer prices please visit our TurboTax web page.

For a limited time only you can get up to 40% off the regular price for Intuit TurboTax Deluxe 2009 edition. I just clicked the special offer link on our Turbo Tax review web page and see the regular price is $49.95 and our special price is $29.95 which includes free efile (Federal). This does not include the state edition. Hurry to get the 40% off discount special offer because the Intuit TurboTax Deluxe 2009 and other Turbo Tax software edition prices usually increase once the tax season is in full swing.

Turbo Tax Free walks you step by step through your income tax return, and provides guidance designed especially for people who are new to income tax software. Turbo Tax Free will ask you simple questions and put your answers to those questions onto the tax forms. When you are finished, you simply click to efile or print your income tax return.

The 2009 edition of Turbo Tax Free offers even more benefits for first time and long time users:

• Turbo Tax Free is accurate so you can efile your income tax return with confidence. Turbo Tax Smart Check double checks your income tax return for errors.
• Turbo Tax guarantees their calculations are 100% accurate or they will pay any IRS penalties plus interest.
• Turbo Tax Free and premium editions can save you money since Turbo Tax is always up to date with the very latest tax laws.

Turbo Tax Free and the other Turbo Tax CD / Download editions are available on our site. This year free efile is included with your purchase of any Turbo Tax Online or Turbo Tax CD / Download software editions. If you have never tried Turbo Tax before, we recommend that you try an Online edition since the Satisfaction Guarantee states that “you may use Turbo Tax Online without charge up to the point you decide to print or electronically file” your income tax return.

This year even more income tax payers can prepare and efile their federal income tax return for free using Turbo Tax and Tax Cut online. Avoid mistakes and file your income tax return faster by using one of these top rated income tax preparation software programs.

Turbo Tax Free is fully functional income tax preparation software online. Turbo Tax Free asks you simplified questions then puts your answers on the right forms including forms 1040EZ, 1040A and 1040 long form. The Turbo Tax Free edition does have income restrictions and does not cover tax schedules C, D, E and F, however you can upgrade to Turbo Tax Deluxe or other Turbo Tax editions if you need more forms or prefer any advanced features.

If you like Turbo Tax Free, try also Quicken Free which is personal finance software made by the some company.

IRS e-file program began as a pilot project in just 3 cities back in 1986 with just 25,000 tax returns filed electronically that year. Each year the number of tax payers choosing e-file continues to grow, with almost 90 million IRS tax returns e-filed last year according to published IRS statistics.

Among a dozen other things, the IRS also said the following today:

“…the error rate is so low for e-filed returns. In fact, the error rate is significantly reduced from 20 percent with paper returns to about 1 percent with e-filed returns.”

“Taxpayers who use e-file and who choose direct deposit can receive their refund in as few as 10 days. That’s because with e-file, there’s no paper return going to the IRS. And with direct deposit, there’s no paper refund going to the taxpayer.”

So not only does e-file deliver your income tax refund money faster than mail in tax forms,  those who e-file usually don’t make any errors. No doubt that income tax preparation software is partly responsible for the reduction in tax form errors. And we must note also that Turbo Tax and Tax Cut are quoting “in as few as 8 days” as the number of days for which you can receive your IRS income tax refund.

IRS E-file opens on January 16, 2009. IRS E-file as we often discuss on our website is the process of filing your federal income tax refund or federal income tax due forms electronically versus sending income tax forms through the mail.

The IRS is expecting to process income tax refunds faster this year. E-file your federal income tax refund online and choose the direct deposit option and get your income tax refund money in as few as 10 days says the IRS. We’ve seen the IRS tax refund money estimate quoted as 8 to 15 days elsewhere, so the general expectation seems to be within that range. Turbo Tax states on their web site that you can get your IRS tax refund in as little as 8 days.

The IRS is expecting to process income tax refunds faster this year. E-file your federal income tax refund online and choose the direct deposit option and get your income tax refund money in as few as 10 days says the IRS. We’ve seen the IRS tax refund money estimate quoted as 8 to 15 days elsewhere, so the general expectation seems to be within that range.

Turbo Tax Free with free e-file states on their website that you can get your IRS tax refund in as little as 8 days.

- Income Tax Pro

Free E-File, not to be confused with IRS Free File, technically means that the electronic transmission of your income tax return is free. This tax year many of the income tax preparation service providers have increase their free service offerings to include free tax preparation along with their free e-filing service. What this all means is that if you like Turbo Tax or Tax Cut, they too offer free e-file and tax form preparation services in a software product that you may prefer over the IRS Free File product. It costs nothing to try Turbo Tax Free, Tax Cut Free, and new for this year Quicken Free which bundles well with Turbo Tax.

-Income Tax Pro

- Income Tax Pro

- Income Tax Pro

- Income Tax Pro