US Tax Filing Prices

A straightforward federal return with W-2 income and the standard deduction starts at $19.99, and a state return alongside it starts at $29.99 per state. A non-resident return on Form 1040-NR starts at $49.99 because it is a different form with different rules. Cross-border work costs more than either — a dual-status year, a treaty claim, foreign-account disclosure or PFIC reporting each add preparation that a domestic return does not need. Every figure on this page is a starting price for that category of work, not a quote for your return.

Because the work is not uniform and quoting a single number would mean either overcharging simple returns or under-quoting complex ones. What moves the price is countable: how many states you have to file in, how many income documents there are, whether foreign accounts or assets need disclosing, how many Indian mutual funds need a Form 8621, and whether a prior year needs correcting. We confirm the fee before any work starts, so the number you agree is the number you pay.

No, it is priced separately at $29.99 per state, and that is per state rather than per return. If you moved during the year you may need a part-year return in each of two states, which is two state filings on top of the federal one. This is the single most common surprise on a first US return, and it is why the multi-state question comes up early when we scope the work.

Foreign-account disclosure is separate work from the return itself, and it is priced on the FBAR and foreign-income service rather than folded into the 1040. The reason is that the effort scales with the number of accounts and the number of years, not with your income — someone with six Indian accounts and three unfiled years is a different job from someone with one NRE account this year. If you are not sure whether you have crossed the $10,000 aggregate threshold, that is worth establishing before the work is scoped.

Per fund, because that is how the reporting works: the PFIC regime generally requires a separate Form 8621 for each fund held, so someone with eleven SIPs has eleven forms rather than one. This is the item that most often makes a cross-border return cost more than people expect, and it is also the one worth getting a scope on before filing season rather than in April. Our guide on Indian mutual funds and PFICs explains the mechanics.

No. Working out which return you need, whether you are resident or non-resident for the year, and what disclosures apply is the scoping conversation, and it happens before any fee is agreed. That matters more for this audience than for a domestic filer, because the answer to "which form" changes the price and quite often the answer is not the one the client expected.

Anything where the effort cannot be known in advance. Representation in an audit, a multi-year catch-up filing, an entity with substantial activity, or a return with an unusual asset structure are all quoted on scope after we have seen the documents. We would rather tell you that than publish a number we would have to revise.