SnapTax fills in tax forms from smartphone snapshots

By Aemon Malone January 18, 2011

It’s that time of year: W2 forms are starting to appear in mailboxes, ushering in tax season for millions of Americans. And while doing taxes online has been popular for years, 2011 may be the start of a mobile era for tax filing. SnapTax, made by the folks at Intuit’s Turbotax, is a newly released app that lets users file their state and federal income taxes on iPhones or Android smartphones.

Anyone who qualifies to fill out the 1040EZ abbreviated tax form — an estimated 22 million Americans — will be able to use SnapTax to file their taxes this year.

And taxpayers needn’t worry about filling out line after line on their device’s relatively small screen. SnapTax allows users to take a picture of their w2 forms using their smartphone’s camera. The information is then interpreted by optical character recognition (OCR) and used to populate the appropriate areas of the 1040EZ form — although, given, OCR’s reputation as a less than perfect system, you’ll probably want to double check to make sure a “4” didn’t show up as a “9” somewhere.

Users will then answer a few questions and receive a report showing their expected refund amount (or amount due). TurboTax says that the whole filing process should take about 15 to 30 minutes.

TurboTax tested the app last year in California where its use was limited to state tax returns.

SnapTax is available now in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market as a free download, but users will have to pay $14.99 in order to file their taxes using the service.

Topics

Apps

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Mobile

I keep forgetting about the Apple Watch Series 9’s coolest feature

Apps on the Apple Watch Series 9's screen.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I love the Apple Watch Series 9. A couple of weeks ago, I returned to wearing it every day after an extended period of not doing so. And you know what? I was surprised by how much I’d missed it.

But one thing has bothered me this time around: There's a feature I haven't been using. Not because it’s bad, but because I tend to forget it's there.
Effortless to own and wear

Mobile

3 foldable phone deals you should seriously consider today

The Google Pixel Fold with the screen open.

For those who are thinking about getting a foldable phone, we've rounded up three foldable phone deals for you to consider as your next purchase. Motorola is currently selling the Motorola Razr at $200 off, which brings its price down to $500 from $700, and the Motorola Razr Plus at $300 off, which lowers its price to $700 from $1,000. Meanwhile, the Google Pixel Fold is available from Best Buy with a $500 discount that slashes its price to $1,299 from $1,799. You can be sure that you won't regret purchasing any of these devices because they're all included in our roundup of the best folding phones, but you need to hurry because the offers may expire at any moment.
Motorola Razr -- $500, was $700

The Motorola Razr features a 1.5-inch external OLED display and a 6.9-inch Full HD+ internal pOLED display, with decent performance provided by its Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 processor and 8GB of RAM. It's got a 64MP main camera and a 13MP wide-angle camera at the back, plus a 32MP selfie camera inside. The folding phone features a metal chassis that's surrounded by soft but durable leather, and it folds without a gap.

Mobile

The OnePlus 12R is still one of 2024’s best smartphone deals

OnePlus 12R Genshin Impact Edition in hand.

OnePlus is still quite new to me, as I was a lifelong iPhone user until I joined Digital Trends. However, OnePlus has a pretty solid reputation in the mobile world, and now I can see why, as the OnePlus 12 is one of my favorite smartphones that I’ve used so far this year.

But the OnePlus 12 isn’t the only phone that OnePlus launched in 2024. There is also the more affordable value option, the OnePlus 12R, which even comes in a cool Genshin Impact Edition.