The Offer
- KeyBank is offering customers all versions of TaxAct for free
The Fine Print
- The 2018 TaxAct Premier+ tax preparation software including any needed upgrade to Self Employed+, as well as federal and state filing fees, will be provided at no cost through October 15, 2019 to all KeyBank customers who consent to TaxAct sharing with KeyBank certain demographic and tax information, which will be used by KeyBank to provide financial wellness services to our customers. This offer is not transferable. KeyBank reserves the right to cancel this offer at any time at our discretion. KeyBank will not pay for any ancillary product or services. Prices for TaxAct products are determined by TaxAct and may change without notice.
- You will be transferred to the TaxAct website. KeyBank is not responsible for content or privacy policies on other sites. You should read its privacy and security policies. KeyBank makes no warranties or representations regarding the accuracy of the information found via the TaxAct website. KeyBank does not control the privacy or security practices of TaxAct.
Our Verdict
Keep in mind that TaxAct will share information with KeyBank. Last year we saw a similar arrangement with Capital One & H&R Block. I personally don’t like my information shared in this way, so I’d rather just pay the money instead. Credit Karma also has a similar free tax filing service, although reviews have been mixed.
I am a KeyBank customer and just got an email saying I’d get a $20 Amazon GC for participating. Tempting.
What about free VITA sites through AARP? You can optout this year from sharing the info. There are no income or age restrictions. I volunteer with them for several years now.
https://www.aarp.org/money/taxes/aarp_taxaide/?intcmp=AE-FOU-TAXAIDE-LOCATOR-IL
If anybody here used the Capital One/HR block offer from last year – you can get free HR block again this year by simply loging in into HR block account and consent to terms on pop up.
I’d rather share my info with Capital One vs Key Bank and would rather use HR Block vs TaxAct.
That said, if I did not have Capital One offer I’d use this offer. It seem as I would be able to even though I am not Key Bank customer.
thnks for this info , will use HR block again this time
Beware if you sign up for this your consent to share information will be effective until 12/31/2023. They are only paying for the 2018 tax return.
At the same time, if you don’t use them again in the future, then there’s nothing for them to share beyond your 2018 return.
True, it’s still kind of sleazy of them IMO. I have not decided yet whether to do this since I have been using TaxAct since 2010 and don’t want to provide KeyBank with my tax return info up to 2023.
Do they support data import from Turbo Tax?
Thanks Will used it last year and found out about Memory Bank promo from it too. I guess ill just let them see my info to save a little money.
looks like you don’t even need to be a keybank customer, they are not doing any verification of keybank customer-clicking on the link directly takes you to tax act signup and even after signup there is nothing ,ideally the link should have been visible only after logging to keybank
Yep, I just went through and confirmed. After consenting, if you click View Upgrade Options it defaults to Premier, and shows $0 Federal and $0 State. I was previously a KeyBank customer.
If you log in and it doesn’t take you directly to your return since you had to go through verification, try clicking the link and logging in again. That’s what I had to do.
Surprised no one mentioned this T&C you have to agree to when you get to Taxact:
Consent to disclose your tax information.
Plain Talk: In order for KeyBank to pay your TaxAct fees (no charge to you), KeyBank requires you to share some of your tax data with them so they can improve the KeyBank experience for you.
?? We do talk about that: Keep in mind that TaxAct will share information with KeyBank.. It’s even in the title
Sorry, looked for the quote from the terms, did not read the whole post. Thought I looked for share but must have mistyped it.
Oh noooooooooooooooooooo……………….
😮
OpenTaxSolver: FREE. No “sharing” of anything with anybody. 😉
They do all income levels and multiple states?
Best to check the project page on sourceforge yourself at opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ You can download the 2017 package, input your data from that year, and compare it to your final 2017 return; the 2018 package is not ready yet. It’s quite simple to use. They don’t have all states (…yet?…), but you can email the project head to ask. Works on Linux, Mac, Windows, and FreeBSD. A checksum is provided to verify authenticity of the download. I don’t see a problem regarding income levels, but I’m not sure about certain more complicated tax situations. I’ve used it for a few years now, but my return is fairly simple.
It’s an open source software, community supported. Not all scenarios (tax forms, states..) are supported (I could not use them last year), but they are pretty responsive.
Stay away from Credit Karma’s tax filing. I used it in 2017 (Oregon) and ending up paying hundreds of dollars in fines due to a bug in their product.
tl;dr: The federal tax form puts your address on multiple lines. The OR state tax form puts it on one line. Credit Karma cut off my address on the state form after the first line, which I didn’t notice during filing. This somehow affected my tax payment and I didn’t notice it didn’t go through. The state was lazy and “couldn’t contact me” – they only sent snail mail but couldn’t use the e-mail or phone number they require you put on the form. The tax owed went to collections and I had to pay a bunch of fines…. I only owed like $37 too.
Any escalation to Credit Karma? That bug is unacceptable to me.
Yeah, I hit them directly and via a reddit AMA. Their response was along the lines of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4