That's really odd (the $150 for taxes), I do my friend's taxes on TaxAct and I really don't remember them being that high for her last year or this year. I've used TaxAct for myself pretty consistently over the years, though I think last year I did TurboTax because of a coupon. This year if I got it done early I got like $20 off TaxAct so they were the winners (I also usually put all the info in both places to make sure I get the same numbers, I'm always worried I'll do something wrong too, LOL).
Luckily Maryland has it available on their comptroller's website to file taxes directly on there so I don't have to pay the extra to TaxAct anymore (I just put everything in, get the numbers, and then delete it). The only bad thing is finding where to put in the credits for putting money into Jack's 529 is a pain in the butt. And figuring out where to put in how much we pay in union dues (both are things we can take off on the state but not federal).
Once the standard deduction went so high our taxes got much simpler - I still put in the things from the mortgage, etc., but I haven't itemized in several years.
