There’s no need to break out your PC to do your taxes anymore. Our top tested tax apps and sites can help you e-file your taxes on your phone, getting you your biggest return—fast!
File Your Taxes on Your Phone Online tax preparation sites and their companion mobile versions have radically changed the way we file our income taxes. Rather than scribbling on a handful of IRS forms and schedules you grabbed at the public library, you’re now more likely to turn to dedicated services and software that have streamlined and simplified the process. In fact, as of October of 2020,71,761,000 self-prepared returns had been e-filed for the 2019 tax year, according to the IRS. That represents a 24.6 percent increase over those who e-filed for the 2018 tax year. While at first e-filing on a phone was limited to the simplest of returns, mobile devices have been able for years now to deal with even the most complex tax situations. This year, we reviewed eight personal tax preparation services and their companion mobile versions, combinations that make it possible to prepare and file your return no matter where you are. Some of these are available as Android apps and iOS apps, and others feature responsive websites that are easily accessed via your smartphone’s browser. Sites with responsive design adapt to the size of the screen and the type of inputs required by the device being used. The interface and elements may look slightly different, but the functionality remains the same. While all the sites reviewed here offer at least some responsive design functionality, tuning the interface of the web version for multiple platforms can be a serious challenge. Given that ease of use is so critical when it comes to tax software, it’s not surprising that many companies also offer iOS and Android apps. Younger users may be more used to working on mobile devices, and some tax filers‘ only devices with connectivity may be phones or tablets. TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and Credit Karma Tax all offer dedicated apps for their services. FreeTaxUSA, Jackson Hewitt, and Liberty Tax, on the other hand, employ responsive-design sites to let you get the job done on your smartphone or tablet. We’ve included information about the mobile access they provide—and its quality—in our reviews of the major tax preparation websites. Note that, in general, we saw less innovation on this year’s tax services, perhaps because their development and support staffs were busy working with new users in a last year’s extended tax season. Plus, the overnight move to working from home had an impact on their workflow, just it did for so many other workplaces. Still, all of the companies whose sites we reviewed managed to update their services for the 2020 tax year and, in some cases, make improvements. Those enhancements carried over to their mobile versions. What Does It Cost to File Your Tax on Your Phone? Most of the companies behind these applications offer multiple levels of their services. The price is the same whether you access the service via your desktop or a dedicated app. If your financial situation is simple enough that you can file a 1040 and little else, several of these services—like TurboTax, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer—offer free editions that you can use to file both your federal and state income taxes. Other free versions, such as those from Credit Karma Tax and FreeTaxUSA, support more advanced tax topics, like self-employment, capital gains, and rental income.
