topic Fees for On-Line Filing in Retirement tax questions

Fees for On-Line Filing

gypsyldy — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:49:21 GMT

Why are there three payments due, regardless what you choose? It took me a period of three days to finish my taxes (what Turbo advised me it would take 45 minutes to complete, ended-up to be about 10 hours to completion). One day, it advised the cost for Federal and State filing would be $39 each. The third day, when I finally finished, it advised it would be $59 each. Why the big jump? I chose to pay for services from my Federal Refund. But if I did this, I would have to pay a 3rd party to process the refund for $40. I did NOT want to do this, so I chose the other option. That would also cost $40!!! So what's the difference then? And why was I forced to check both boxes for the Agreement for the whole processing fee, before it would let me move onto the next page, to finish up the filing? Of course, by that time, I was just eager to wrap things up, and agreed to anything at that point! What starts out as "Filing for Free" is misleading, and absolutely nothing is free. It's ridiculous. I may as well go and have an accountant do my filing for me. It'd cost about the same amount of $$$$!

Re: Fees for On-Line Filing

VolvoGirl — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 19:35:25 GMT

What other option for $40? Sounds like the same 40. You can pay with a credit card to avoid the extra Refund Processing Service charge. And the early prices expire on March 1. You can pay early before you're ready to file to lock in a lower price. Something to remember if you use Turbo Tax next year.

Re: Fees for On-Line Filing

gypsyldy — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 16:14:58 GMT

I believe the other option was, in fact, using the credit card. I just didn't have the funds to use my credit card at that point. I never wanted to pay at the beginning though, because I didn't know from the start what issues may come up for whichever year, and what help I may have needed as I continued going through the process of filling out my information. Thanks for the tip though! I'll have to remember to pay better attention next year, when I start the process. Thanks for responding! 🙂