Dr Tax Software Inc., the maker of UFile.ca, will be increasing its free tax software offerings for 2004 to include all seniors on a special day called “FreeFile Friday”.

UFile has always provided access to free software for taxpayers with income of $20,000 or less. This tax season, the last Friday in February will be set aside to give Canadians age 60 and over the opportunity to prepare and file their tax returns online at no charge using UFile.ca.

Due to the nature of the Web application, this special offer does not require that the tax return be completed or filed that particular day.

Dr. Tax says that one of the benefits of an online tax program like UFile.ca is that consumers can prepare their tax return at no charge, and pay only when they are ready to print or NetFile.

“FreeFile Friday will allow taxpayers age 60 and over to prepare their tax return at any time. As long as they open their file and accept the offer on that special day, they can use UFile.ca absolutely free of charge” says Malcolm Campbell, VP and general manager of Dr Tax Software Inc. “They can make adjustments to the return and file at any time after that.”

UFile.ca has been available on the Internet since the year 2000. UFile can prepare tax returns for all provinces and is available in French as ImpôtExpert.ca (formerly ImpôtWeb.ca). Dr. Tax says that 45% of all Canadians who used an online tax program last tax season chose UFile.ca.

This season, UFile will also be sold in retail stores under the “UFile for Windows” banner. The new product can be installed on a personal computer and uses the same method and tax calculation engine as UFile.ca, the online product. The calculation engine behind UFile has been widely used by Canadian tax professionals for over 15 years.

“I think most people would be surprised at the number of seniors who go to the Internet to file their tax returns. Many, many seniors are very Web-savvy according to our research and survey stats, says Campbell.