What are the actual rules for being claimed as a dependent? I moved out halfway through last year (July 2024) but my parents paid for my health insurance all year. Can they still claim me even though I'm financially independent now?

For your situation, it depends on several factors. The main tests for a qualifying child dependent are relationship, age, residency, support, and whether you file a joint return. For the age test, if you're under 19, or under 24 and a full-time student for at least 5 months of the year, you could qualify. The residency test requires living with your parents for more than half the year, but temporary absences for education count as time lived with them. The most important factor is usually the support test - if you provided more than half of your own support (rent, food, clothing, medical, etc.), then your parents cannot claim you, regardless of health insurance.

I've used both and prefer FreeTaxUSA. Credit Karma (now called Cash App Taxes) is completely free for federal AND state, while FreeTaxUSA charges for state filing. But I found FreeTaxUSA's interface more intuitive and their explanations clearer. Also had better luck with their customer service when I had a question. If you only have W-2 and student loan interest, either will work fine honestly. Just pick one and go with it!

Are there any downsides to paying taxes with a credit card? I've always been told to avoid it but never understood why.

The main downside is the processing fee - it's about 2% of your total payment. So on a $2700 tax bill, you'd pay around $54 extra just for using a card. The IRS doesn't charge this fee directly, but they use payment processors who do. The other potential issue is falling into credit card debt. If you put taxes on a card and can't pay it off fairly quickly, you could end up paying way more in credit card interest than you would with an IRS payment plan (which typically has a lower interest rate). However, if you have a card with a 0% intro period and you're confident you can pay it off during that time, it can be a reasonable strategy.

Yes! I did this last year and it worked great. Just attached Form 9465 to my return, proposed a monthly payment I could afford, and got approval in about 3 weeks. Much easier than dealing with their website or phone system.

This is super helpful, thanks! So it sounds like I definitely shouldn't try to write off my flights to Italy or back, but the specific expenses while I'm there for business purposes would be okay. Do you recommend any specific apps for tracking the expenses while I'm traveling? I'm worried about keeping all those foreign receipts organized.

I use Expensify for tracking business expenses abroad - it has receipt scanning that works well with foreign receipts and lets you categorize everything immediately. The automatic exchange rate conversion is also super helpful so you don't have to manually calculate everything back to USD. Take photos of ALL receipts immediately because some foreign receipt paper fades quickly. Also, create a simple daily log in Notes or Google Docs where you record the business activities for each day - who you met with, what you discussed, and the business purpose. I also drop a pin on Google Maps for each business meeting location as additional documentation. This level of detail has kept me audit-free for 7 international trips with business components.

Do you need any background to volunteer? I'm interested but literally know nothing about taxes beyond my simple W2 job.

No background needed at all! They start from scratch with the training. I knew basically nothing when I started - just filled out 1040EZ forms for my own simple returns. They provide all the training materials and have experienced volunteers who mentor you. They have different certification levels, so you can start with the basics and work your way up as you learn more. Even the basic certification teaches you WAY more than most people know about taxes. And when you encounter something you don't understand, there's always a more experienced volunteer to help explain it.

Waste of money. Those courses just teach basic deductions that are readily available in IRS publications or any tax prep software. They make it sound like secret knowledge but it's really not.

I've been using FreeTaxUSA for 3 years now. No complaints and saved a ton of money. Do they still let you import your previous TurboTax returns? That was the feature that convinced me to switch initially since I didn't have to re-enter everything.

Yes, they still allow you to import previous returns including ones from TurboTax. That's what made switching so easy. You just upload your PDF from last year and it pulls most of the information automatically. You still have to review everything of course, but it saves a ton of time compared to starting from scratch. The interface definitely isn't as polished as TurboTax but all the same features are there, just organized a bit differently. Took me maybe an extra 15 minutes to get used to it, but considering I saved about $50 compared to what TurboTax wanted to charge me, it was totally worth it.

$250 seems really reasonable for full service. Does your accountant e-file for both federal and state? And do they handle more complex situations like self-employment or investment income?