The IRS has a Free File program which began in the mid-1980s, it lets individual taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $73,000 or less use free commercial tax software to prepare and e-file their returns. No state returns.
Its usage is anemic. Only about 3% of eligible taxpayers use the system each year. I know at least one of those users. I knew him from a networking group.
So, it’s the middle of tax season and we are up to our noses in returns to file, I get this call from this gentleman. He is having trouble getting him information into the Free File program and is calling me for assistance. Before I can stop him, he is knee deep into how the system is not working and wants my help getting his information in.
I politely explain that I have no familiarity with the IRS’s program. I have to explain that I use a paid for tax program that has no bearing on the Free File program. He apparently though I was paid to enter data into the IRS’s system. I explained that mine was more complex, and I had clients who made over the threshold for the Free File.
I suggested that he would have to call the IRS at some level to get their tech people to assist him.