Taxes for Poor Graduate Students

mak22 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:19:45 -0400

For those of you that are just thinking about taxes, but haven't done them yet.... Good news if you're poor -- there's lots of places that let you file with them for free!

Below are the responses.
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As long as you make under $52,000 a year, you can do your federal taxes for free
at H&R Block online. You can also e-file for free. They'll charge you $20 (I
think) to do your state taxes, but that's not too bad, eh?

You can also just google "free tax prep," and you'll find a lot of sites worth
checking out.

TurboTax has a freedom edition (available online for free
http://turbotax.intuit.com/taxfreedom/ ) with the same information, but
available only if you make less than something like $52000 a year. If you
have a lot of complicated stock things then it doesn't have all those
features, but for the basic taxes, it does Federal and North Carolina for
free. I had no problems with it, and it came up with some deductions I
wouldn't have known about. Good luck.

If you make less than $52,000 a year you can go to www.irs.gov and check out the "free file" options. Each company has different requirements for free filing, but you should find at least one that will work. I've used several and all have been fine.

There are loads of websites where you can do your federal taxes for free (I haven't found a free one for NC income tax...but once the program walks you through the federal it's usually not to hard to sit down with the paper state form and fill it out).
Just go to irs.gov and click on their 'free file' link. They'll list lots of sites, and give you the option to fill out basic info @ yourself and get a 'streamlined' list of free sites. I used H&R Block's free site this year (go to their site via irs.gov, however, otherwise they'll try to make you pay). Granted it's the only site I've tried, but I found it very user friendly (lots of 'help' links, and easy to go back to change/review sections).

The IRS has a website where you tell them the state you live in
and a couple other facts and they tell you ways to prepare your taxes for free.
http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

I've used TurboTax for the past couple of years. They do have a free package that will figure and eFile your federal taxes, however, they charge an additional fee ($25.95) to do your state as well. Most grad students can get by either on this or on their cheapest package and do taxes quickly online. Paying for the cheapest package was worth it to me since I had some self-employment income last year which complicates things slightly, and I got back quite a bit more money than if I'd figured them on my own, and it's fast: I submitted them electronically at the beginning of February and had my refunds from the state and fed in about a week. It was $29.95 well spent.

I used to have my attorney brother do my taxes, and then I found out that he just used TurboTax himself.

Depending on your income, you may be eligible to file electronically for
free (no need to buy the software). Eligibility requirements can be found
at: http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

I just did mine at citizentax.net. I actually used them last year, too, and found them pretty user friendly. It was $7.77 to file the federal return and $9.99 for the state one. Our taxes were pretty straightforward-- we didn't itemize or anything-- so I'm not sure how this would work for a more complicated return, but like I said I was happy with it.

i've been using the "Taxwise" software for a while because i'm a volunteer
tax preparer through the IRS (the duke law school has a chapter, the
organization is called Volunteer Income Tax Assistant) and that's the
software we're given to use. i really like it, although am not sure how
much it costs because i receive it free. if it's available and relatively
cheap i would recommend it.

also, as a side note, i recently went to comp USA and many of them are
going out of business... so pretty much everythign there is on sale. they
may have some software bundles that are discounted because of their
closing sale.

My husband and I have used TaxCut Basic at hrblock.com to do our federal taxes the past few years. The state return is pretty simple, so we just download the forms from http://www.dornc.com/forms/ and mail them in.

I have been using Turbo Tax for the past two years and it is EXCELLENT. I qualified to file for free but even if you have to pay it is worth. It is super easy and usually your return is higher.

If you don't want to pay you can prepare your taxes and pass all the info to paper. With Turbo tax you only pay at the end when you file, preparing is for free.

Here is the page for the free version (only if your AGI is below 28.500$):

http://turbotax.intuit.com/taxfreedom/?priorityCode=3468342228

I am a HUGE fan of Turbo tax.

If you're income is below $30,000 you would use the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program at the law school. Get more information at http://www.law.duke.edu/student/act/vita/

My husband and I did our takes online with HR Block. Since we were bellow a
certain income threshold, they did not charge us their filing fee. It was quite
easy and we got our refund in a week. I think the HR online software offered
also state taxes, but we decided to do our NC taxes manually. I just went to
the NC website and did the taxes myself. It was quite easy, but it took 3
hours.

I'm glad you asked! You can use TurboTax for free if you are below a certain income (about $28,000), and your return is relatively simple. My return was too complicated to use the free program, but there are other free software possibilities that I haven't checked out yet. The IRS has a whole list of them at: http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?ck

If you're eligible for Free File, it's electronic and free for your federal taxes. http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html
I've been told (though haven't tried yet myself) that you may be able to do your state taxes this way as well if you find the right place, but you have to look for which sites do which states and whether they charge. Good luck!

If you make less than about $30,000 a year, which I assume you do since you are a Ph.D candidate, you can do them online for free with TurboTax. Just go to the NC Department of Revenue website and click on e-File and I think you can just jump into the TurboTax system from there.

Some financial institutions provide software for a nominal cost that you
can securely access through the web. Often, you can save your general
information (name, DOB, SSN, etc.) for future years so that you don't
have to re-enter everything. The immediate cost is low, usually
$10-$25, and you don't have to re-enter all of your information in the
future (which means you are also paying for convenience). You can check
with your financial institution to learn about their services.

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Taxes for Poor Graduate Students