BEST VALUES IN TAX SOFTWARE

We ranked the most popular tax-prep packages to help you find the ones that provide the best experience at the lowest cost.

- RIVAN STINSON, ROCKY MENGLE and SANDRA BLOCK

AS THE TAX DEADLINE NEARS, YOU HAVE two choices: pay someone to prepare your taxes or hunker down and do it yourself. If your tax situation is straightforward—you don’t own a business, for example, or have a large amount of investment income—you can save a lot of money by preparing your own return. The average cost of paying someone to prepare a federal and state tax return for taxpayers who claim the standard deduction is $176, according to the National Society of Accountants. For taxpayers who itemize, the average cost is $273.

But tax software can get expensive, too. Although most major providers offer free programs for taxpayers who claim the standard deduction, earn modest income and have no dependents, you may be forced to upgrade to a more expensive version if you contributed to a health savings account or deducted interest on a student loan.

To help you find the program that’s right for you, Kiplinger reviewed the most popular programs and ranked them based on cost, ease of use, tax help and more. We used two fictional tax returns: one for a single taxpayer with income reported on Form W-2, and a second for a married couple with a young child and a mortgage who itemized deductions. (For more on our methodology, see the box below.)

Prices quoted here are as of February 14. Many tax prep providers engage in surge pricing, which means the cost could rise as the tax filing deadline approaches. For a rundown of all nine programs we reviewed, go to kiplinger.com/links/taxsoftware20.

1. Credit Karma Tax

PROS: Easy to navigate; free with no exceptions, even for complex returns

CONS: Won’t process multiple state tax returns www.creditkarma.com/tax

The credit monitoring and credit card site tops our value rankings. Even for our hypothetical couple who itemized, Credit Karma Tax supported all the forms they needed.