Creditkarma offering free fed and state tax filing for 2016 (including e-file)

GTFan

GTFan

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Saw this on Slickdeals, the CK founder is participating in the thread as well. Nice alternative and I applaud the effort to get away from paid tax filing especially with the crap that Intuit tried to pull a couple of years ago. If you read through, the founder says they bought an established authorized e-file company so it's not a brand new deal for them.

https://slickdeals.net/f/9503516-creditkarma-com-online-tax-return-filing-free-reservation
https://blog.creditkarma.com/credit...t-karma-dont-pay-filing-your-taxes-ever-again

CK has been around for a long time with free credit scores and monitoring. They make money off of credit card and loan referrals.
 
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I like "free", and I resent that the IRS has struck deals that effectively provided a guaranteed business for companies providing tax e-filing services. The IRS claims it saves the government money when people e-file, so the government should make it free to do so and start saving tax dollars rather than artificially supporting private industries at my expense.

That said, I don't think I'll be giving Credit Karma all the information contained on my tax forms just to avoid an e-filing fee. As the Credit Karma President writes:
How can we afford to do this? Our mission is to make financial progress possible for everyone. By better understanding your credit and your taxes, Credit Karma can become your financial assistant. We can monitor your credit, advise you on how to make good financial decisions and suggest better cards, loans and insurance products for you.
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I don't want Credit Karma to "better understand my taxes."

Nope, if my tax software doesn't provide free e-filing, I'll probably just mail my taxes on paper again.
 
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samclem said:
I like "free", and I resent that the IRS has struck deals that effectively provided a guaranteed business for companies providing tax e-filing services. The IRS claims it saves the government money when people e-file, so the government should make it free to do so and start saving tax dollars rather than artificially supporting private industries at my expense.


Nope, if my tax software doesn't provide free e-filing, I'll probably just mail my taxes on paper again.
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+1 on that! It is crazy that you should have to pay (or make a deal with the devil) just to file your taxes. I'll keep mailing them in on principle (although printing, postage, time spent likely exceeds the e-filing fee :confused:)
 
I'm with samclem and euro on that. Credit Karma doesn't need to know more than they already do, which is probably more than I'd like anyway.
 
Thought this was universally understood: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
 
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If it saves the government (all of us) money to have private companies handle e-filing I'm all for it. I'll use whatever is simple and free. I don't really care if they have my personal information.
 
If you're getting a refund (and that probably applies to fewer than half the folks here, I think), then there is always the factor of the 10% extra rebate in Amazon gift cards when you file through something like TurboTax. Not trivial in many cases.
 
Anyone have any luck yet with getting creditkarma tax filing yet? It is promised to roll out in January and so far, almost half way through the month and I can't find squat about the status.
 
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Still pending on their website, I wouldn't worry about it until end of Jan.
 
I usually have filed by the 3rd week of January. Mainly to beat the identity thieves who file in your name and steal your refund. It's happened twice to me and it's a pain to recover. By filing early, I get my refund before they do. If I make a mistake, haven't yet, but if I do, I'll file a correction. However, I'm up enough to know exactly what is needed without waiting for statements from banks, pensions and such.
 
I am willing to pay the $30 to $40 for a tax program.... I file 3 returns for me and family...
 
Got my notice that it's available now to all who requested access, went in and started a return. They do require a stronger password and two-factor auth to your phone (or email, I think) to get in.

Looks good, no issues so far. Hope this works out ok and I'll never pay for filing again. I had free filing with online Turbotax Deluxe for years courtesy of State Farm until Intuit started that Schedule C and D nonsense. Now I see that State Farm has discontinued the offer, so all the better that there's a viable alternative.
 
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GTFan said:
Got my notice that it's available now to all who requested access, went in and started a return. They do require a stronger password and two-factor auth to your phone (or email, I think) to get in.

Looks good, no issues so far. Hope this works out ok and I'll never pay for filing again. I had free filing with online Turbotax Deluxe for years courtesy of State Farm until Intuit started that Schedule C and D nonsense. Now I see that State Farm has discontinued the offer, so all the better that there's a viable alternative.
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I requested access. When I log on to credit karma, and click the Tax link, it still says I'm on the list, just as it always has since the day I signed up.
 
+2 for on the list. I doubt that I will use it but I am interested to see what it is all about.
 
frank said:
+2 for on the list. I doubt that I will use it but I am interested to see what it is all about.
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Send me your SSAN, home address, email address, annual income, complete info on interest you are paid by all financial institutions (I'll figure out your approx balances from that), mortgage interest (I'll estimate how much you owe from that), phone number, full name and SSAN of your spouse, and everything else that is on your tax return. After you send me all of this valuable (and exploitable) info, I'll explain how CreditKarma can give away this "free" service. Postage may end up looking darn cheap.
 
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I started the tax return and so far so good. The forms give you the choice to tie in to the regular Creditkarma account to bring in info you gave them previously. I assumed this was so they can use the info to "target" stuff for you based on real income and investment information. I elected not to sign up for that. We'll see if the "barriers" between one and the other actually hold. But frankly, I've used Turbotax and Taxact before for electronic filing and I have no absolute certainty that those electrons I sent are flowing exactly where I told them to with no copies of the info going elsewhere.

I'm of a mind that anything I input into the cyber world is actually out there for anyone interested enough to get it so the only way I can see to stay away from that risk is to become a total ludite and stay away from the interwebs altogether - go back to pencil and paper for everything. I'm not going to do that absent real direct impacts.
 
What a joke that site is. When I tried to use their tax program, the first thing it wanted was for me to change my password. So I did. Then it wanted me to log on with the new password. But it didn't work. Then it locked me out and said it would send my e-mail address instructions on how to reset the password. But it didn't send it. So now I'm locked out of credit karma and can't do taxes or check credit score.

I'm sure I didn't screw up my password because I ALWAYS cut-n-paste any password I enter when I create one, just on the off chance just this sort of thing might happen.

Near as I can tell, there's no way to get hold of credit karma other than through my e-mail and since they don't send me info on how to reset my password, I can't see how any other attempts to contact them would result in anything different.
 
I've been playing some more with the Creditkarma tax program and I ran into a problem that doesn't seem to have a workaround. When entering forms 1099-B there doesn't seem to be any way to identify Applicable check boxes (D,E or F) and the program lumps all entries into D. The program has an interview mode but there doesn't seem to be any way to input info directly into the tax forms to override the interview data. I finally gave up and bought Turbotax...
 
CreditKarma Free Tax prep

I am mostly done with my 2016 tax return on Credit Karma. I am having 2 problems that I have not yet received an answer from their support.

1. There is no sales tax calculator to compute the deduction amount for states without income tax, including Nevada where I live. My workaround is to use the tables in IRS Form 526.

2. I can't figure out how to access IRS Form 8606 (Nondeductible IRAs) on Credit Karma and have not discovered a workaround yet. I can use TaxACT free to compute the amount but still don't know how to input that number into Credit Karma.

Credit Karma isn't bad, just newbee challenges.
 
Update: Credit Karma free tax prep

Credit Karma answered my question about state sales tax deduction calculator in 5 days. Their answer:

"Credit Karma does not have any state sales tax deduction calculator for 2016 tax returns. Maybe next year."

FYI, the IRS has a sales tax calculator at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/sales-tax-deduction-calculator
if you want Credit Karma free tax return prep and live in one of the states with no state income tax so that you can deduct state sales tax if you itemize deductions.

After 10 days, Credit Karma says my question about how to access Form 8606 (Nondeductible IRAs) has been escalated in their support structure and to be patient.

I am in wait and see mode with Credit Karma about Form 8606.
 
Ugh, sent them a question about how to classify mutual fund sales with various basis dates into short or long term (using, say, VARIOUS-S or VARIOUS-L as the date) and got a nonsensical answer back about if you put the right dates in it will determine whether it's short or long. Lady ignored my question in other words even though I said the basis date was variable. There's only one cap gains entry sheet and it lets you put VARIOUS there but then everything is classed as short.

Um, yeah - not going to enter a zillion basis dates for mutual funds even if I could. Clueless. I also asked how you enter sales with no basis sent to the IRS (code E) and got no response. CK puts everything as basis provided sales, there's no way to specify otherwise that I can see.

So in other words there probably isn't a good way to handle Sched D and form 8949 without fudging something, their simplified way of entering cap gains/losses doesn't work.

I bailed on my CK return after entering just about everything and went back to H&R Block. Well worth it to pay the $15 for Deluxe+State+full e-file, I've had no issues for 3 years now and it didn't take long to reenter everything with all my old stuff imported.

To be fair this is a free program so you can't expect much, I'll wait and see if it's any better next year.
 
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