Turbo Tax not free for elders

This year, I offered to do the tax return for my father, instead of him shelling out $60 for someone to do it, albeit tax deductible. Taxes aren't that complicated for me. For this year, I already did it for myself and two of my brothers. I've never done it for my parents until now.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that the free offer for Turbo Tax has a income cap, which made me ineligible. I normally pay for Turbo Tax, but I decided to save myself $35 this year and do it myself. However, I used the software on-line to simply calculate my taxes, then proceeded to fill out the paperwork by hand and sent it to IRS by snail mail.

I just learned right now that there is one other exception: the tax payer must be under age 50. That's odd. Is it because older people should be able to afford tax software? Turbo Tax's website for this offer is called "Tax Freedom", which should be "Tax Freedom for lower income younger people". 12 days and counting until the tax deadline...