We compared Credit Karma Tax and TurboTax for filing your taxes - here's the verdict

Personal Finance Insider writes about products, strategies, and tips to help you make smart decisions with your money. We may receive a small commission from our partners, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.

Courtesy of Intuit

TurboTax connects users with real human experts to answer tricky tax questions.

• I've tried filing my taxes online with TurboTax and Credit Karma Tax, and truthfully, I liked them both.
• The biggest difference is price: Credit Karma Tax is free for all filers in all situations, while TurboTax is free for filers with basic tax situations who earn less than $34,000 a year.
• Even though it might seem obvious to choose the free option, I ended up paying for TurboTax this year to file my business taxes, something that seems smoother on TurboTax than on Credit Karma Tax.

TurboTax is the longtime market leader when it comes to filing your taxes yourself using your computer. But a few years ago, Credit Karma Tax emerged as a no-cost competitor. Alongside competitors H&R Block and TaxAct, these four tax software packages account for the vast majority of DIY filing.

This year, I kicked the tires on both Credit Karma Tax and TurboTax with my own taxes to see which worked better and which I should use to file.

I'm happy to report an overall great experience with both tax filing methods. However, depending on your situation, one may be better than the other. In general, I found Credit Karma Tax works great for those with the most common tax situations. TurboTax reigns supreme for more complex situations, such as owning a business or moving to a new state during the tax year.

Here's how to decide which one will work best for you.

Costs and fees: Credit Karma Tax vs TurboTax

Credit Karma Tax and TurboTax start to look different when you examine the price.

TurboTax costs money for most tax filers, but is free if you have a very basic tax situation and earn less than $34,000 per year.

In addition to TurboTax's free version, you can get Deluxe for $59.99, Premier for $79.99, and Self-Employed for $119.99. Free gives you mostly just a W-2 form entry from your employer. Deluxe adds deductions, credits, and features for homeowners. This is the most popular version, according to TurboTax.

If you don't qualify for the free file program at TurboTax, make sure you don't start your taxes there. Once you click on the free file button, you can't go back and upgrade to a paid version. You would be forced to enter everything again in a brand new account or export your information to use in the desktop version of TurboTax.

The Premier version adds support for investments, rental properties, and cryptocurrencies. Self-employed gives you everything from the cheaper versions plus support for the forms and deductions used by freelancers, contractors, and other small business owners.

That online software isn't the final price, however. You'll pay extra for state filings and you may run into other fees along the way. 

Credit Karma Tax is free to use regardless of your tax situation. Credit Karma Tax supports state filings, plus filings for investments, rental properties, and cryptocurrencies its free version, making it the clear winner when it comes to price.

Winner on price: Credit Karma Tax

How much will you owe in income taxes this season? Find out with this calculator from our partners:

Ease of use

Credit Karma Tax and TurboTax both give you intuitive guidance to ensure you don't miss a tax form. Both are software companies, so it's no surprise that they do a good job at putting these platforms together.

For anyone with a full-time or part-time job, your W-2 form likely makes up the bulk of your tax return. Here's a glance at what they look like at TurboTax and Credit Karma Tax respectively:

TurboTax W-2 entry form:

TurboTax

TurboTax - The W-2 form can be imported from some employers, or you can copy your form information into this simple web form.

Credit Karma Tax W-2 entry form:

Credit Karma

Credit Karma Tax has a similarly easy entry form. It also supports uploading a photo of your W-2 for automatic importing.

Both platforms give you an easy way to search for specific forms you want to enter or a guided tax entry experience. If you can handle things like email on a computer, you should be just fine with either program.

Winner on ease of use: Tie

Financial results

Both TurboTax and Credit Karma Tax come with a guarantee that they will give you the maximum refund and accurate results. For most filers, these claims are true on both sides. That is what led me to use the free Credit Karma Tax last year over TurboTax, which I used the previous year.

I hopped onto a few financial forums at Reddit and found users there mostly reported that they had identical results at Credit Karma Tax and TurboTax. In those cases, the users reported that they went with the free tax option over the one that costs money.

One user, however, said they had an issue with their business form at Credit Karma Tax, which happens to be what led me back to TurboTax this year myself. In my case, it looks like the new 20% pass-through deduction didn't get added in Credit Karma Tax. TurboTax did include it, which made a significant difference in my own results.

So the verdict isn't as clear as the categories above. If you have fairly normal taxes that include things like W-2 or 1099 income, investments, a mortgage and property taxes, and common deduction and credit situations, both stand equal. For business owners, it seems that TurboTax has an edge.

Winner on refunds: Credit Karma Tax for most personal filers, TurboTax for business filers

Which one makes the most sense for you?

Everyone has to file taxes every year, and I love the philosophy that Credit Karma Tax takes toward income taxes: If you have to do it every year by law, you shouldn't have to pay for it.

However, if you own a business, you could find that TurboTax yields better results. At the end of the day, it's all about saving the most money on taxes. You have to take both taxes and the tax prep option into account. In my personal case, going with TurboTax this year was better, even though I had to pay for it. Last year, I used Credit Karma Tax for free as my results were the same.

In either case, it's a lot cheaper than hiring a human accountant. I used to do that myself, but I realized after a few potentially costly errors by my accountant that I know my own money better than anyone else.

If you are confident with your money, you should be in good shape with either Credit Karma Tax or TurboTax. If you're unsure, you can prepare your taxes with both and file using the one that gives you the best final numbers. But if you want to save time and don't own a business, you will probably find things work perfectly at the no-cost Credit Karma Tax.

• Read more about taxes:
• We compared H&R Block and TurboTax for filing your taxes - here's the verdict
• I used Credit Karma to file my taxes for free last year and loved it. Here's why I didn't use it again, but who I think should.
• Here's how big tax refunds could be this year for people earning between $21,000 and $266,000
• 11 million Americans could be affected by a big change in Trump's tax plan, and a CPA says he's getting frantic calls about it

Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Personal Finance Insider team. We occasionally highlight financial products and services that can help you make smarter decisions with your money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. What you decide to do with your money is up to you. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we get a small share of the revenue from our commerce partners. This does not influence whether we feature a financial product or service. We operate independently from our advertising sales team.