Why does Government charge to E-File Taxes?

That's not "the Government" charging you. It's TurboTax. Go directly to your state tax agency's website to find out if you can e-file direct.

I've been asking this same question for years.

Of course, it's not really the gov't charging to efile. It's the tax preparation firms. But still, the whole point of efiling is to save the gov't labor in scanning and data processing manually, and it increases the accuracy rate!.

You'd think the government, both state and federal, would work with these tax prep companies to make it free for everyone, or at least cheaper.

And the State government ones make the least sense, because they are usually far less of a return then federal. My state return is usually about 1/10th of my federal. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $16 for that. I'll print out the paper and mail it and let them have to do the manual handling, scanning and data entry.

You're not paying "the government" to file. You're paying TurboTax.

Your state's official Web site may have a place where you can e-file for free. If not, remember that filing a paper return never costs more than the cost of a stamp.

like the first answer just go to your state's tax website and efile through them it's free you will need to know your information from your last years taxes and its quick I filed my state through the state site monday and got my refund friday

They don't charge you if you use their website it is a private company such as Turbo Tax who charges you.