Last Updated on April 16, 2022
Intuit Inc. is an American corporation that specializes in financial software. Specifically, the company develops personal finance, accounting, and tax return software.
The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California. It has more than 10,000 employees.
While Intuit has a GitHub presence with over 100 repositories for numerous open source projects, none of these repositories offer any substantial desktop software. Instead, the repositories focus on tools and libraries for developers. None of these projects appear to have attracted significant interest from the open source community.
The company focuses its development efforts on a range of proprietary programs. Intuit refuses to support any platform other than Windows and macOS.
This series looks at free and open source alternatives to Intuit’s products.
TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns step-by-step.
What is the best free and open source alternative to TurboTax?
1. OpenTaxSolver
OpenTaxSolver (OTS) is software for calculating Tax Form entries for Federal and State personal income taxes. It automatically fills-out and prints your forms.
OTS includes the most used forms released by the IRS and several states, which are the Fed-1040, Schedules 1-3 along with Schedules A-D, and the states of VA, NC, OH, NJ, MA, PA, CA, and NY. As well as the Health Savings Account (HSA) Form 8889 and Form 8606 for Nondeductible IRAs, and Schedule-SE, which are accessed under the Other Forms bullet of the OTS GUI front screen.
2. Free File
The IRS offers online tax filing system available to almost anyone running a browser. It’s an easy way to ensure you comply with federal taxes. With quick submission and just a web browser, submitting tax returns doesn’t have to be taxing.
The program operates every year from mid to late January until mid-October.
All articles in this series:
| Alternatives to Intuit's Products | |
|---|---|
 | Mailchimp manages mailing lists and creates email marketing campaigns and automations to send to customers. |
 | Mint is a personal financial management website. The service offers personalized insights, custom budgets, spend tracking, and monitoring. |
| TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns step-by-step. |
 | Quickbooks is an accounting software package targeted mainly at small and medium-sized businesses. |