A couple of weeks ago, I went to the store to buy tax software to help me get through my 2008 income taxes. I reached for a familiar program and looked at the price. I looked over at the box on the next shelf and it's price. I was stuck. What's the difference? If I pay 30 bucks more for one program, will I get a bigger refund?

I really wanted to know if there is a difference.

I called John Schnurbusch at Schnurbusch, Moore & Associates, LLC. Click for Information He has about 20 years of experience as a CPA and kindly agreed to take two programs for a test drive.

I picked Turbo Tax because you can find it in stores for around $50. I grabbed the Deluxe version because it includes federal and state tax information. The price includes up to five federal e-filings. However, you have to pay extra ($19.95) to e-file a state return.

For the second part of our experiment: I picked the least expensive program I could find: Tax Act. You can register with the site and prepare your returns on-line for $16.95 (federal and state). The price includes an e-file for both.

John used sample data from a family of four. A husband and wife that both work. They have one child in college and one child in grade school. They own a house, pay for daycare, and the wife has a 401k. We tried to pick a "typical" return.

John did the return the way he would for a client, then plugged the information into Turbo Tax, and Tax Act.

On this fairly simple return, the refund came out to the same amount.

Of course it helped that John (our professional) had already done the return, so if we came up with a different number, we could go back and hunt for the mistake.

When you use either program, we found you have to make sure you really understand what each question means. If not, ask someone (Turbo Tax has an on-line "chat" feature that lets you ask questions). You can always call the IRS for free.

Speaking of free: there's no rule that says you have to pay anything to prepare your income taxes.

If you made $56,000 or less last year, you can qualify for free use of tax preparation software. The IRS has a list of free programs on it's site. Just keep in mind, a lot of them will still ask you to pay extra to file a state return (usually around $10)

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Of course, filling out your own forms without tax software is free. The IRS has forms you can fill out electronically - without the "interview" process that you'd find with tax software.

What you may not realize is you can call the IRS with questions. They'll answer them for free.

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If you want personal help with your taxes and you don't think you can do it on your own, you can go to IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers. They'll sit down with you and help you prepare your taxes for free.

Find a Help Center Here

The centers are open Monday through Friday, but on March 21st three St. Louis area Taxpayer Assistance Centers will be open.

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