Spent 10 minutes with my SO, moving our shared deductions between us to see which distribution resulted in the lowest amount of taxes. Turns out that the tax authorities are pretty good at what they do, as the best distribution was what they’d already prefilled.

Despite having very different income, no matter how we moved the numbers, the numbers at the bottom didn’t change in a manner where the total would result in a higher refund.

So we both ended up filing our taxes with no changes to the prefilled values.

EDIT:
TIL that the Norwegian tax authorities appear to have an official youtube channel. There you can see an example in English how it’s done. Can’t wait for them to have a youtube reaction face thumbnail or a collab with MrBeast.

  • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Was it really $15.99 or is the marketing page hiding hidden costs for some situations (assuming you don’t need support or audit defense).

    • DavidP@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 months ago

      The $16 is if you’re also filing state taxes with it. Federal is still free.

      I wonder how many people actually only do federal with it? 2%?

      • GiantRobotTRex@lemmy.sdf.org
        3·
        2 months ago

        I believe that people who live in states without income tax don’t need to file state taxes (at least usually, maybe there are exceptions). That includes:

        • Alaska
        • Florida
        • Nevada
        • New Hampshire
        • South Dakota
        • Tennessee
        • Texas
        • Washington
        • Wyoming

        If my math is correct, about 21% of the US population live in one of those states.

    • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 months ago

      I think it was $15.99 to file the state taxes. There are some extra services like you mentioned that you can sign up for, but you can ignore them. In the past Turbo would say Free file, but then interrupt you “looks like you have dependents, that’s going to cost you $20, oh no, you have stocks? Another $20 to file. Kids in college? That’s another $20.”

      None of that this year! Already got my refund back too, so it’s just as quick as Turbo usually was.

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Amazing, yeah, that’s my hesitation with switching and investing time, to get charged at the checkout.

        • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 months ago

          I thought the same thing, but I decided to see it through, and was very happy with the lack of shenanigans.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      I’ve used it for multiple years. There’s an option to pay using your refund, which incurs a fee. Direct deposit also incurs a fee. Otherwise it’s as advertised

    • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      It really is 16 if you pay with a card, we just did ours a few weeks ago. Been with them for about 5 years now, everything’s been great.