Money Worksheet

Has any one ever used the free tax service for military families? Is it realy worth it?

I used the service when I was 18 and it did not go well. They said I owed money and I knew that could not be right cuz I had only worked about 6months at burger king so I went to HR Block and got a full return. Now my husband is military and he wants to use the free tax service but we have a house and IRAs and I'm a student and I am not sure if I trust these people. They gave me a worksheet to fill out before I go in and I don't think I awnsered all the questions right. I'm a little worried. What do you think

Public Comments

1. Oh they helped me sooo much! When my husband was in the military his father died and left us some money. We had investments and our taxes were very complicated. The man that was volunteering helped me to get them filed, it took us two days of information retrieval, but we finally got it done, and he did it correct, the year before H & R block messed them up and I had to pay a penalty on the taxes owed, and file an ammended return. This was in 95, so it has been a few years.
2. i haven't had personal experience with filing through them, however, i do work for my state's government and we get plenty of taxes through their services that are done correctly. H&R Block has three times as many mistakes. i would definitely take advantage of the service even though you had problems once before, mistakes happen. however, if you don't want to use them here are some other suggestions for you: 1. you can file your federal and state taxes online for free through their e-file services.(your gross income must be under a certain amount though) 2. you can also have state taxes done for free if you go into one of their branch offices. they have employees that are there for that purpose. 3. lastly, if you itemize deductions, you can go to a regular preparer and then take the deduction for the cost of preparation on state taxes(i don't believe there's one for federal but there may be) if you aren't sure the worksheet was done correctly, you can tell that to the preparer once you get there, just make sure you take all of your information. they should be able to explain anything to you that you may have misunderstood. and if worse comes to worst you could always email me and i'll help you out with it as best as i can. =)