It's that time of year again. You've gotten your W-2s and any other paperwork, such as a 1099 for your investment income, in the mail, and you're ready to sit down and do your taxes. But you're unsure of which program to use. We're here to help.

As in previous years, we reviewed nine of the most popular tax preparation software programs for 2019 returns, including TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct and others, to help guide you to the right program. In addition to reviewing, we ranked them based on cost, ease of use, tax help and more. Our goal is to identify the products that provide the best overall value.

To help keep everything equal, we created two fictional tax returns using each product. The first return was for a single taxpayer with just W-2 income. The second return was for a married couple with a young child and a mortgage. (For more information about our hypothetical taxpayers, scroll to Methodology slide at the end of this article).

Just remember: Know thy tax situation, as it will determine the best program for you. Here are the rankings, from the software that offers the least to the one providing the most bang for your buck.

Liberty Tax

Courtesy Liberty Tax

Liberty Tax offers three versions of their online tax software: Basic, Deluxe and Premium. Which one you use depends on the complexity of your return. When we road-tested their products at the end of January 2020, all three editions were the same price--$45. However, we don't expect that pricing scheme to last until April 15. At some point we expect prices for the Deluxe and Premium versions to go up to $65 and $90, respectively (and maybe higher).

Those prices are pretty high considering that you