H&R Block - Free NY State eFile

H&R Block was supposed to be free for NY last year but after getting through the federal return for a friend and wanting to efile NY, it wouldn't efile until a fee was paid. I complained to the NY IRS that it was falsely listed on the NY IRS website that it was free. Please leave a reply if someone from NY uses this.

will be following this

My efile with H&R Block dlx was free last year to NYS. Last year was first year that they could not charge for efile.

If your income is $57,000 or less, you may qualify for FreeFile and can use free tax preparation and free e-filing software.

Quote from pongagt : H&R Block was supposed to be free for NY last year but after getting through the federal return for a friend and wanting to efile NY, it wouldn't efile until a fee was paid. I complained to the NY IRS that it was falsely listed on the NY IRS website that it was free. Please leave a reply if someone from NY uses this.

It's only free if income is below $57k and you are younger than 52 with H&R Block. I'm trying to file for my parents and it wants to charge me $28 plus tax for their state return because they are older than 52.

Edited to add that I followed a link from NY Dept of Taxation's website for free filing with no requirements to myfreetaxes.com which looks like Walmart owns it and when you click to file it reroutes you to H&R Block's site. I couldn't sign in with the ID I had just created at H&R without it changing and wanting to charge me for the state return. I went through everything again and made a new ID and the NY return was free to make and efile along with the federal return. The other company with no requirements onlinetaxes.com did not have a form I needed to file for them (tax credit for volunteer firefighter) and I couldn't find any where to add in the credit.

Quote from Mojo53 : It's only free if income is below $57k and you are younger than 52 with H&R Block. I'm trying to file for my parents and it wants to charge me $28 plus tax for their state return because they are older than 52. Edited to add that I followed a link from NY Dept of Taxation's website for free filing with no requirements to myfreetaxes.com which looks like Walmart owns it and when you click to file it reroutes you to H&R Block's site. I couldn't sign in with the ID I had just created at H&R without it changing and wanting to charge me for the state return. I went through everything again and made a new ID and the NY return was free to make and efile along with the federal return. The other company with no requirements onlinetaxes.com did not have a form I needed to file for them (tax credit for volunteer firefighter) and I couldn't find any where to add in the credit.

Thanks for the info. The person i was doing the taxes for met all the requirements above but they still came up with a fee for NY. I believe it was called a processing fee, not a efile fee. Just yesterday i used Turbo Tax for his federal and state returns and had no problems efiling both for free.

Quote from pongagt : Thanks for the info. The person i was doing the taxes for met all the requirements above but they still came up with a fee for NY. I believe it was called a processing fee, not a efile fee. Just yesterday i used Turbo Tax for his federal and state returns and had no problems efiling both for free.

Ahh, sneaky. There were no fees when I did it through the Walmart sponsored link through H&R Block. Thankfully my parents' return was easy so it didn't take too much work to reenter everything. I hate that they get you after you've input everything and all that time into it.

Quote from Mojo53 : Ahh, sneaky. There were no fees when I did it through the Walmart sponsored link through H&R Block. Thankfully my parents' return was easy so it didn't take too much work to reenter everything. I hate that they get you after you've input everything and all that time into it.

I did some more checking and it was Turbo Tax that came up with the fee after i efiled the federal return with them. Because the federal return was already efiled with Turbo Tax, H&R Block would not let me efile his state return by itself. I had to copy and paste everything into the NY tax return pdf file and he mailed it in. Turbo Tax would not even let me print out the state return. I called NY and complained about it last year and it looks like Turbo Tax is not playing any games this year.