i did my taxes over the weekend. i had previously used turbo tax, but they wanted to charge me $49 since i had to use the schedule d (capital gains/losses) form. turbo tax online has a selection titled "start for free" but by the time you end up entering all your information, it is likely that it is not free unless you are filing the 1040 EZ. i actually filed my federal taxes this year for FREE through taxact (www.taxact.com). taxact also has deluxe versions and you can file both federal and state for $17.95. i found it similar to turbotax and calculations for my taxes were exactly the same. perhaps for more complicated taxes, it is best to choose turbotax. i really don't know since my taxes aren't too complicated. i chose to do only federal for free using taxact and filed the california state tax forms myself (which only took me 10 minutes to fill out the 540A Form), so i didn't spend a dime.
