I-CAN E-File Tax Software Review

• Free to prepare and electronically file your federal tax return.
• You can either print your tax return to mail in, or e-file the returns using this service.

• The PDF of the tax return is not secure and can be accessed by users not logged into your account.
• State tax preparation supported only for California, Michigan, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania.
• The Web site's interface is spartan. No convenient way to navigate to a particular data entry form.
• I-CAN only supports certain types of income, deductions, and credits.

• I-CAN supports tax preparation for the states of California, Michigan, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania.
• I-CAN does not support multiple state returns, for example if you lived or worked in more than one state during the year.
• I-CAN does not support capital gains, farm, rental, or barter income, or clergy income.
• I-CAN supports a limited number of deductions including alimony, classroom expenses, and some itemized deductions.

I-CAN E-file is a free, Web-based tax preparation service operated by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County. Unfortunately, I-CAN suffers from a huge security flaw. Users can download or view a copy of their tax return forms (in PDF format) at the end of the interview process. The URLs for those PDF files are preceeded by the https:// protocol, indicating that those files are secure. However, I was able to download those PDF files using a completely different computer, and without logging into my account. That means a user's tax return data can be easily compromised by identity thieves and hackers, and so I-CAN cannot be recommended.

Adding insult to injury, I-CAN will purge all your personal information from their servers if you email them with your name, address, last four of your Social Security number and password used to access the site. Of course, sending that information via email is even less secure than the security flaw I described above.

Security issues aside, I-CAN features a spartan Web interface. Users can navigate back and forward through the tax interview, and can click on section headers to navigate to their personal information, income, credits, deductions, and state information. I-CAN lacks granular navigation schemes to quickly go to a specific income or deduction item. For example when I wanted to change information about a student loan deduction, I had to click on the "deductions" header and then click forward through the interview until I came to the relevant screen.

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