Tax software giveaway, take two

You know what's coming up, right? No, not Valentine's Day. OK, Cupid's holiday is almost upon us.

But Feb. 14 this year also is special for taxpayers who've been waiting for the IRS to process their returns.

To mark the convergence of the most romantic day of the year and your taxes (yeah, it was weird typing that, but …), I've got something for you almost as good as a box of chocolates or roses: free tax preparation software.

For the next three days, I'll be giving away access codes to online tax preparation for federal and state returns.

We kick off the contests today with 2nd Story Software's TaxACT. I've got 11 links to the company's Online Ultimate Bundle. Each will give you TaxACT Deluxe + one State Edition to prepare your returns, along with one free federal e-file and one free state e-file.

The bad news is that if you've already used TaxACT to file, the access links won't work. The good news from the folks at 2nd Story is that if any current TaxACT filer wants to enter and wins, they'll work with you to make the prize worthwhile for you. Details will be included when I contact the winners.

Now to the important stuff, entering and winning!

How do you become a winner of one of these TaxACT links?

• Leave a comment on this post telling me what part of tax filing you hate most.
  
• If you don't leave the requisite comment, that entry won't be eligible for the drawing.
  
• You can enter as many times as you want; that, is, you can leave as many comments as you want.
• Be sure to leave a valid e-mail with your comment. It won't be shared with the blog reading public, but I need it to send you your winning tax prep link. 

There are a few folks, however, who won't be able to win. They are those who were winners of the ol' blog's first software giveaway of 2011 back in January.

How will the winners be selected?

At 11:59 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, Feb. 9, I'll take all the eligible commenters names and then randomly select six winners.

The names of those who didn't win will be left in the pool.

The pool of potential winners for the remaining links will continue to grow. Anyone who leaves a comment on Thursday, Feb. 10, between midnight and 11:59 that day will be added to the second drawing, during which I'll randomly select the remaining five winners.

Contest details and announcements: Finally, so that everyone's clear about this giveaway, here's some contest housekeeping.

I'll announce the winners' names, real or pseudonym (whatever you use to leave a comment), at the conclusion of each day's contest.

As noted earlier, though, I will not announce the winners' e-mail addresses. Nor will that contact info be shared with anyone else.

I'm not receiving anything from 2nd Story Software/TaxACT for giving away this tax prep/tax filing access. My reward <<beep. beep. tax geek alert.>> is simply the joy of helping folks find a way to file their taxes.

Thanks for reading. Good luck. And let the commenting begin!

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