How to File Taxes for FREE (IRS Income Tax | Walkthrough) - in 9 Minutes

Hi, my name is Loma. I teach entrepreneurs business and money management skills. I wanted to show you guys just how easy it really is to file your own tax return. I'm going to show you a run-through of me filing one of my clients' tax returns so I can show you just how simple and easy it is and just how quickly you can actually get your tax returns filed. And hopefully this will give you the confidence to know that tax preparation doesn't have to be tedious or difficult and shows you that you'll be able to get yours done in less than an hour. All right, so I already set up her profile information and we're just ready to get started on her tax return. And the first question it's asking is whether or not we want to import her tax return. I'm going to choose yes and follow the steps here. I'm going to choose the uploading a PDF option and then click the I'm not a robot and click import PDF now. And Express 1040 is going to process the information and try to pre-fill whatever information it can extract from the tax return that we're uploading. And it just takes a few moments. Once it finishes, it's going to say we're off to a great start, and it shows you the pre-filled information here. So it was able to see the filing status, the name, the birthday, Social Security number, and the address. And when I scroll down, you can already see the previous employer that she had on her last tax return, and it'll pre-fill in that information in case she was still working for the same employer. But they'll give you the option to delete it in case she did not work for the same employer. Now here it's already pre-filled in all the information that they found off the last tax return. I'm going to go ahead and update the occupation because that's not the same for this year as it was last year for her. The rest of the information looks good, and all the answers to these questions are no. I'm going to click continue. She's going to be filing as single and click save and continue. She doesn't have any dependents, so the answer is no here. Doesn't have any dependents, so she didn't have any Child Tax Credit. And now we're going to go over the summary of the information that they have for my client. She does not have an identity protection PIN, so the answer is no there. They already have her phone number pre-filled in. That information is correct, so we're just going to click Continue to move forward. And I'm not going to sign up for the Deluxe service because I don't need it. And here's where they have the previous employer's information here, and I have the option to click Start to be able to update the information if she still worked there for this current year, or I have the option to press Delete. She did not work for this employer this year. So we're going to go ahead and delete that employer from her tax return. So now we're just going to add the W-2s that she did provide me, and I'm going to copy the information of her W-2s and confirm it. And now add the next W-2 and confirm that. And then she has one more W-2, and I'll enter all that information now. As you can see, it's pretty simple and basic information. You're just copying the information off the W-2 and then review all the information to make sure it's correct. Once you verify the information, you can click Continue. Here you'll notice it shows a comparison of her last year information to compare it to this year and the information she's entering. That would serve as a reminder that last year she filed certain income and would jog her memory as to whether or not it applies to this year. And then click continue if, if none of those income items apply. And then it's asking about cryptocurrency. My client does not participate in purchasing or selling cryptocurrency. Now I'm going to go over the income summary to make sure that everything looks good. Her 3 W-2s are all totaled in the wages section, and that's all of her income information. We're just going to click continue through the pro options and see here they charge $25 to access a tax professional to assist you while you're preparing your tax return. But in this case, I won't need that, but you can always sign up for that if you feel like you need a little bit more guidance, but it's definitely much less than what you would have paid in a regular tax preparer. Now I'm going to continue to the deduction section. The standard deduction is $12,550 for a single person. Click continue here. And as you can see here, that this year's standard deduction is a little bit higher than last year's standard deduction. Okay, my client doesn't have any of these deductions, so we're going to be going with the standard deduction for her. And my client did have Form 1095-A. She did have Obamacare. Which is health insurance from the marketplace. So I'm going to answer the questions that they have here. It's important that you answer these questions correctly. It asks if all the amounts from January to December were the same, and since they were not on the Form 1095-A, it varied from month to month, I'll have to manually enter each of the amounts on the next page. I'll enter the policy issuer's name, and then I'll enter all of the amounts. Once I check and make sure everything looks good, I'm going to click Continue. And that's the only 1095-A that I need to enter, so I'm going to click No to continue, that I don't need to add any more. And based on the information we provided, It looks like she qualifies for an additional tax credit of $184. Next, it's asking if she contributed to an IRA and she did not. It asks about whether or not she has a Form 1098-T for college tuition. It's basically asking if she had any college tuition expenses and she was not a student, so she does not. She does not have a student loan that she's paying on, so she does not have Form 1098-E. She was not a teacher or an educator. You'll want to answer each of these questions correctly to verify that you are eligible or not eligible for Earned Income Credit. In this case, my client is eligible for Earned Income Credit even though she does not have a dependent. She qualifies for $1,263. Here's some of the basic information you need to know to figure out if you qualify for Earned Income Credit. There are age requirements as well as income requirements and the type of income that you have. We're going to click continue to move forward, and she doesn't have any Child Tax Credit advance payments. She received all of her stimulus payments, and they're going to verify the amounts. I'm going to confirm that she did receive all of them because I did confirm with her. I also checked her IRS account online to verify that they show that they did actually send that money to her. She doesn't have any Home Energy Credit. She doesn't have any Child Care Expenses. Then they're going to go over some Common Deductions and Credits. There's nothing else here that applies to my client. Then they're going to go over some other types of deductions and credits. None of these apply to my client. And now it's going to go through a summary for the deductions and the credits that's been calculated for this client. Shows the Standard Deduction. Then it shows the Earned Income Credit. Shows the Premium Tax Credit from the Marketplace Insurance. Next, we're going to go to the Miscellaneous section. None of this information applies to my client, so I'll just click Continue here. I'm not going to go through Refund Maximizer here because she has a very simple tax return and none of the questions that they would ask would apply to her. And it's going to ask a few additional questions to make sure that all the forms that she would have received have been entered. And now we're going over the federal tax summary, and this is a summary of showing her income. It shows her adjusted gross income, her deductions, her taxable income. She does have taxable income of $603. The tax that she owes for that income is $61, and the payments and credits that she has is the income tax that was withheld from her paychecks. For the 3 W-2s that we entered, Box 2 totaled $409, and she qualified for $1,263 in Earned Income Credit. She has $184 Premium Tax Credit for her health insurance, so her total payments and credits total $1,856, and they're going to deduct the $61 in tax that she owes from that total. And as you can see at the bottom, now the total refund is $1,795, and it gives me the option to view a draft version of the tax return that's been prepared for her. I'm going to click continue. Next, it asks about her state tax return, and she doesn't need to file one. And as you can see here, her federal tax return is going to be filed for free, and we're not going to sign up for any of the additional options. The next question is about her banking information, so I'm going to fill out her bank information so that she can receive her refund in her bank account, which is the fastest way to get your tax refund. I'm going to verify I have all of the numbers correct to make sure that she gets her tax refund, and I'm going to confirm this is her correct phone number to put on her tax return. I have the option again to view her tax return to make sure everything looks good. I'm going to go ahead and review it now. Once I've reviewed it, I'm going to click Continue, and it gives her the option to e-file because she's filing her tax return before the e-filing deadline, which is October 15th or the next business day. Next, it asks whether or not she has her prior tax return, and the answer is yes. And we're going to enter her AGI here, her adjusted gross income. This information is used by the IRS to serve as like a security question to make sure that she's actually the person filing her own tax return and somebody else isn't fraudulently filing her information. Next, wants to confirm the date that you're filing it, which would be today's date, which at the time was February 3rd. And it shows her birthday because that's another way to verify her information. And it asks that we select a 5-digit PIN number. This number would be used to verify her in the future because it's being assigned to this tax return. When we click Continue, the next section is to confirm that a valid email is on file, and they will send a verification code to the email address. You'll enter that code here. If you didn't receive it, you have the ability to request that they send a new code to you. And if you're having trouble with your email, then you can choose the option at the bottom. But in this case, the client already provided me the verification code, and I'm going to click Continue to move forward. And the last part is just typing in the code as you see here and hit Submit. And that's it. So as you can see, this is just how easy it is to file your tax return. And if you have all your information together when you get ready to file your tax return, everything is very quick and simple, and it takes very little time. I hope this gave you the confidence you needed to file your own tax return. Click the link to take my quick tax quiz.