Cofiled

What is Cofiled? How it works and who actually files

Cofiled turns whatever tax papers you have into a finished return a licensed CPA files. Here's how it works, what it costs, and what it can handle.

Updated September 2026 · 4 min read

A New Mexico couple at a roll-top desk working out their own income tax return in February 1943 — Moreno Valley, New Mexico, February 1943. A cattleman and his wife making out their own income tax. This is the part we take off your hands. · Library of Congress

You searched our name, so here's the straight answer, the same one we'd give you across a kitchen table. Cofiled does your taxes from whatever you have. Not from a hundred interview questions. From your actual papers: last year's return, the W-2s and 1099s, the bank statements, the photo of a crumpled form. You send them, the return builds in front of you, and a licensed CPA files it.

The short version

Cofiled is a tax filing service, not do-it-yourself software. Software reads your documents and does the math a preparer would bill by the hour for. A person, a licensed CPA, reviews the return and files it under their own credentials. You see every number on the real IRS forms before anything is filed, and you pay one flat $99 only when you decide to file, federal and state together.

How it works

01Send what you have. Last year's return is the best starting point because it tells us what your filing usually needs. Photos are fine.
02We ask for what's missing. Not a wall of questions. A short list in plain words, built from your own situation, and it never asks for anything you already sent. If a document is hard to get, we tell you exactly where it lives and how to pull it.
03Check it, then we file it. The return assembles on the actual IRS forms while you watch, line by line, with each number traced to the paper it came from. When you're happy, you pay the $99 and a licensed CPA files it.

What Cofiled can handle

Gig and self-employment income: Uber, DoorDash, freelancing, the 1099-K and 1099-NEC pile, mileage and the Schedule C that goes with it.
Rental income: Schedule E, the 1098, depreciation done properly instead of guessed.
Regular jobs: W-2s, plus the year you had both a job and a side gig.
Back years: tax years 2019 through 2026. Behind a few? The IRS already has copies of most of your documents, and we can pull them with one signed form. Our guide on what actually happens when you haven't filed in years walks through it.
Fixing a filed return: amendments on Form 1040-X when a form showed up after you filed.
Planning ahead: a quarterly tax estimate that tells you one number to set aside, covered in our guide on quarterly taxes for gig drivers.

What Cofiled is not

It's not software that hands you the wheel and wishes you luck. You never pick forms or decode IRS instructions; the papers decide what your return needs. And it's not an office you book an appointment with in March. There's no appointment. You send papers when you find them, at 11pm if that's when the shoebox opens, and the work happens on the other end.

Two honest limits. If your situation genuinely needs a specialist, think multi-state partnerships or an audit already in motion, a CPA should look at this one directly. And we prepare and file returns; we're not a law firm and don't handle tax court.

What it costs

Free to start, $99 flat when you file, federal and state in one price. No card to begin, no hourly meter, and you read the finished draft of your return before you pay a dollar. The full breakdown, including how that compares to a typical preparer bill, is in our pricing guide.

The shortcut

There isn't a longer way to skip this time. This is the whole thing: send what you have, answer the little that's missing, read the draft, and a licensed CPA reviews and files it.

See it with your own papers.

Drop last year's return and whatever else you've got. Watch the return build, read every number, and pay only if you decide to file. A licensed CPA signs and files it. Free to start, no account.

Start my return, free →