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15 years after shuttering its tax-prep app, Va. may be ready to compete with TurboTax again
Rob Pegoraro: there’s a name I haven’t seen in a while.
15 years after shuttering its tax-prep app, Va. may be ready to compete with TurboTax again
Rob Pegoraro, Virginia Mercury
June 9, 2025, 1:14 PM
This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury.
The Virginia Department of Taxation’s website parts company with the web presences of other agencies in the commonwealth: It doesn’t offer its own tools to help you complete your primary task there — taxes.
While you can renew a car registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles site and register an LLC at the State Corporation Commission’s site, Virginia Tax doesn’t let you file your state income taxes online and instead points you to commercial tax-prep services.
That’s not because Virginia Tax hasn’t developed its own filing app. It’s because 15 years ago, the department shelved the iFile app that had already drawn more than 278,000 users in 2009.
In 2010, then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, signed a bill patroned by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg, which had Virginia retire iFile and cede tax preparation to private providers that would offer apps for free to lower-income residents – the same proposition the Internal Revenue Service accepted in 2002.
That removed a free option from higher-income taxpayers, with Intuit’s market-leading TurboTax charging a state tax-prep fee that now stands at $64, despite the relative simplicity of the state’s Form 760. Most other commercial tax-prep services charge for state filing, although Cash App Taxes does not.
“We should not have to pay a for-profit company in order to file our taxes easily,” Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, said after reviewing a constituent’s complaints.
{snip}
Rob Pegoraro, Virginia Mercury
June 9, 2025, 1:14 PM
This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury.
The Virginia Department of Taxation’s website parts company with the web presences of other agencies in the commonwealth: It doesn’t offer its own tools to help you complete your primary task there — taxes.
While you can renew a car registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles site and register an LLC at the State Corporation Commission’s site, Virginia Tax doesn’t let you file your state income taxes online and instead points you to commercial tax-prep services.
That’s not because Virginia Tax hasn’t developed its own filing app. It’s because 15 years ago, the department shelved the iFile app that had already drawn more than 278,000 users in 2009.
In 2010, then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, signed a bill patroned by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg, which had Virginia retire iFile and cede tax preparation to private providers that would offer apps for free to lower-income residents – the same proposition the Internal Revenue Service accepted in 2002.
That removed a free option from higher-income taxpayers, with Intuit’s market-leading TurboTax charging a state tax-prep fee that now stands at $64, despite the relative simplicity of the state’s Form 760. Most other commercial tax-prep services charge for state filing, although Cash App Taxes does not.
“We should not have to pay a for-profit company in order to file our taxes easily,” Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, said after reviewing a constituent’s complaints.
{snip}
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
