As told by representative, I got back fees that I paid
for filing free federal tax return.
I have prepared my tax return as much as I could have
done in the month of March, but it was not fully prepared as I was expecting a
couple of schedule K-1s. Finally I received schedule K-1 and I was excited to
complete preparing my tax return. By the
way, I learned that one can get schedule K-1 online before he/she receives paper
one. Anyways back to the theme, as I received schedule K-1, I logged into my
account to complete tax return. When I logged
in, all data was wiped out!
So I called the company and found out the reason. I had
already had a username with them which I used to file my tax return in the
past, but for whatever reason I created new username to file tax return for
this year. And when I received schedule K-1 I logged in using my old user name.
Because of this, system wiped out all the information that I entered for filing
tax return using my other username.
Now representative told me to use to old username. Representative
asked me to pay fees again and mentioned that I will get refund after 2-4 weeks.
So I did that and I entered everything I thought it was necessary to enter. Now
I was feeling very good thinking I am done preparing my return. Somehow I like
to things on deadline and I decided not to file my tax return before second
week of April.
Second week of April came and I was ready to file my
income tax return finally. Before I do so, I decided to check my prepared tax
return again to make sure I did not make any mistake on it. While doing so, I found
out that I did not fill form 6781. So I looked for that form, but could not
find it on the version of software that I was using for filing my tax return. I
tried calling them, but it was not working hours and I had to wait for next day
to do so. It was a couple of days before filing deadline and I did not want to
wait for next day. So I googgled it and read somewhere that this form is
available if I use premium version of software. I thought I had no choice but
to pay for this premium version now. So I did. I paid for premium version. And guess
what? I still could not find form 6781. Now it was late at night and I was
tired so I decided to call it a night thinking I will call next day and they
will tell me where to find the form and I will fill it and will file my tax
return.
So next day I called and representative told me that they
don’t support form 6781!
Now deadline for filing tax return was next day and I had
to find an alternative. So I thought I would use turbotax. So I looked it up
and I found out that due to deadline they increased their prices. Basic version
was for fifty bucks for filing federal tax return. I had to file federal and
state tax return and I also knew that I might need to go with higher version as
I had to file form 6781. So me being frugal, I did not even bother to check
prices for state filing and higher version. Since I like to understand tax forms,
I knew about every form I had to file. So I filed my federal tax return using https://www.freefilefillableforms.com
and I filed my state return for free using https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calfile/index.asp
