Daily App: TurboTax Does It All For Free

The passing of another year means that any day now workers will be receiving their W2s and thinking about filing tax returns. Intuit's TurboTax for Android and for iOS has everything necessary to file federal and state tax returns, and does it all for free.

The TurboTax process starts with a few bits of personal info, a security question and a password. As security questions go, we generally prefer the precision of concrete choices such as "mother's maiden name" over the "favorite sushi" variety, which are easily forgettable and tend to change over time. Unfortunately, all of TurboTax's dozen or so default questions fall into the latter category. Next came a one-page tutorial showing where to tap for asking questions and exploring, and in which directions to swipe to proceed or go back.

Next comes the interview phase and a slew of questions about place of residence, age, occupation, and dependency and marital status. If married, many of the questions are repeated for the spouse. As in other tax apps we've tested, these are presented one at a time to keep things simple and unintimidating. After each, we proceeded by swiping from right to left. If the information scrolls off the bottom of the screen, an animated arrow indicates that there's more to see.

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Next, we're asked to enter information about income. TurboTax attempts to simplify this process by using the device camera to scan the taxpayer's W2 form(s) and extract the information. When in camera mode, the app places corner guides over the viewfinder that turn green to indicate that the image is in range. It took a few tries to align the photo well enough to allow the app to read the data. Once it did, a review mode displayed the scanned data and the image side by side and presented an easy editing interface for manual confirmation or editing.

There appeared to be no way to save the changes we'd made and we ended up losing them. While we toiled, our login timed out. When logging back in, TurboTax picked up where we left off, but we had to scan the W2 again. This time, all the data points appeared for review instead of just a few, along with an "Approve All" button. The app used the data to populate the test tax form and walked through again one piece at a time. Next it asked about other sources of income (bank interest, etc.), if any.

We chose guided mode, which asked a series of questions applicable to many possible situations. The "I'll explore on my own" option presents the same areas of inquiry as a list, and would be a shorter and more direct option for some people. After completing any of these items, the app displays the master list again along with any entered figures, making it easy to keep track of which ones are yet to be completed.

The app then moved on to deductions and credits, again offering guided and solo modes. Following that, it advises of additional tax breaks that might be available. Finally, it delves into deductions and details regarding new health-care laws, displays the amount owed or to be refunded and performs a "Smart Check" to make sure nothing was missed. If so, it explains and presents a simple interface for editing. Start-to-finish, the entire process of filing a simple federal return took about an hour.

PUBLISHED JAN. 23, 2015