I’m sure doing it manually is the safest, but perhaps there’s a least poison for software/services for filing US taxes. What do you recommend? (or, atleast, what do you recommend steering clear of)

I can also vouch for FreeTaxUSA, I’ve compared it against a few major tax companies and at least for relatively simple stuff, they were totally identical results, and just as easy to use.

There are a few options for free filing based on income (generally, lower that $79k) here: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free

And if you’re in one of 12 lucky states, there’s an IRS Direct File trial program:

Arizona
California
Florida
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Washington state
Wyoming
Create a post

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more…


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We’ve tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the “official” Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other “Privacy Guides” communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don’t ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don’t repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don’t abuse our community’s willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

  • 1 user online
  • 1 user / day
  • 5 users / week
  • 69 users / month
  • 650 users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 664 Posts
  • 11.1K Comments
  • Modlog