I use TurboTax myself to do my taxes.  I’ve been using it for a couple years and am generally pleased.   This year I suggested to my girlfriend that she should use one of the free tax filing options since her taxes are relatively simple.   She did.   She ended up using one of the sites listed on the IRS site.  Her experience and indirectly my experience has left me a bad taste for the whole free e-filing process.    I liken it to the process of getting a free credit report except worse.  

1) The first thing that went wrong was that she filed with an itemized deduction instead of the standard deduction.   You would think the filing software would take the larger of the two.

2) She emailed them about taking back her return - no response

3) She couldn’t print out a copy of her taxes once she filed - she had to pay $9.95 for them send a paper copy via snail mail

I accept some culpability in this matter as when she was actually doing her taxes, I was too engrossed playing my Wii to help her out.   I’ve since helped her file a 1040X amendment, but who knows when she’ll actually get her proper refund.   In light of the experience my girlfriend had with the efiling (and I imagine all the competing vendors to employ similar nickel and dime tacticts to make money), I’d recommend everyone who does want to efile to first do his or her taxes by hand before they actually go forward and efile.   Me - I’m sticking with TurboTax.

I’m all for government outsourcing, but the IRS has made the free e-filing process full of potential landmines given the varied quality of the sites out there.   The IRS should’ve at least mandated a standard level of service from different e-filers.