Cash App Taxes Review 2024: 100% Free But Limited Customer Support

Cash App Taxes is for people with relatively simple tax returns who only need to file a federal and one state return.

While Cash App Taxes covers many tax forms and situations, it doesn’t work for people who:

• Worked and lived in different states
• Worked in multiple states
• Had foreign income over $600
• Receive a K-1 from an estate or trust
• Claim the foreign tax credit

You can find a detailed list of forms and situations that Cash App Taxes doesn’t support in the Cash App Support library.

Cash App Taxes is 100% free and doesn’t offer paid tiers or add-on services.

So what’s the catch? So far there isn’t one, other than supporting Square’s goal of getting new and existing customers to use more of its products.

Cash App Taxes is a good pick for people who want truly free tax filing. As long as the software supports all of the forms you need to file, you get:

• Free federal and state filing: Many of Cash App Taxes’ competitors offer free filing only for people with uncomplicated returns, which generally means W-2 income and claiming the standard deduction. Others may offer free federal filing but charge per state return.
• No fees deducted from your federal refund: Competitors often allow customers to deduct their tax preparation fee from their refund and charge customers for the convenience. Since Cash App Taxes is free, there’s nothing to deduct from your refund.
• No pressure to buy pricey add-on features: Other “free” tax filing options push customers to upgrade to a paid version of the software to get priority customer support, have their return reviewed by a tax pro, audit defense, and other add-on services. Cash App Taxes doesn’t have any paid add-ons.
• Free audit defense: All Cash App Taxes customers get free audit defense. So if you file with Cash App Taxes and the IRS or state tax authority audits your return, a Case Resolution Specialist will review and respond to tax notices and represent you in front of the IRS.

Preparing your tax return with Cash App Taxes is trouble-free and straightforward. The software asks a few questions about you, your spouse, and dependents (if any), and the type of income, deductions, and tax credits that apply to your return. Then it personalizes the experience to show you just the sections you need to complete.

If you realize that you need to add another section later, a box at the bottom of your “Tax Home” page lets you browse for other forms or sections to add.

Cash App Taxes asks a few questions about your situation and personalizes your tax filing experience based on your answers.

As part of my review, I went through the process of preparing three sample returns. Here’s how long it took me to get from start to filing for each one:

• Single taxpayer, no dependents, W-2 income and the student loan interest deduction: 10 minutes
• Married couple filing jointly, one dependent, two W-2s, Child Tax Credit and child and dependent care credit: 12 minutes
• Single taxpayer, no dependents, self-employment income, federal and state estimated tax payments: 12 minutes

However, I should note that these times only covered filing federal returns. The sample tax profiles I used were supposed to include state returns for Alabama and Louisiana, neither of which was available in Cash App Taxes as of Feb. 2, 2022.

As of the date of my review, only three states are available to file in Cash App Taxes: Arizona, Georgia, and Iowa. The company plans to have all states available by mid-February.

If you expect a refund and want your money fast, you might be better off filing with a competitor like TurboTax or H&R Block, since all states aren’t currently available in Cash App Taxes.

Cash App Taxes is also far behind the competition when it comes to support. If you have questions or run into issues while preparing your return, you can click on one of the informational links (ⓘ) peppered throughout the interview forms, and a pop-up screen will have more information.

You can also click on the “?” on the upper right-hand side of the screen to access a handful of FAQs or search for helpful articles about your topic. There’s also a chat feature, but while the system said support specialists are available to chat from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., chat was unavailable in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.

The software suggested I send an email to the support team but didn’t provide an email address. I had to search around the website to find the form to contact customer support.

Many of its competitors, including TurboTax and TaxAct, have much more robust customer support options—although you might have to pay for them.

If you’re not sure how to answer a question, click on links embedded in the interview forms to get more information.