FTC bans TurboTax from advertising ‘free’ services, calls it deceptive

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 643 points – FTC bans TurboTax from advertising ‘free’ services, calls it deceptive | CNN Business
cnn.com

The Federal Trade Commission ruled in a final order and opinion Monday that TurboTax, the popular tax filing software, engaged in deceptive advertising and banned the company from advertising its services for free unless it is free for all customers.

By running ads for “free” tax services that many customers were not qualified for, the tax filing software violated the FTC Act and deceived consumers, the agency said.

The FTC had first sued Intuit, TurboTax’s owner, for its deceptive advertising in 2022. The FTC staff alleged most tax filers couldn’t use the company’s “free” services — “such as those who get a 1099 form for work in the gig economy, or those who earn farm income.” TurboTax advertising their products as free misled those customers, according to the FTC.

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Oh yeah totally free, just go ahead and put in all your info... Oh, looks like your at the last step and have spent a bunch of your time filling everything out. Oh darn! Look at that, you need to do something very basic that 99% of people need to do? Yeah that will be 75 bucks please.

TurboTax is nothing more than a "Legal" scam that pulls a bait and switch to steal money from people.

You don't pay until you file for a lot of those services. I filled out the tax info for the past 2 or 3 years to see what refund estimates and what not each software came up with. Then I filed with the one that was cheapest since they pretty much all output the same thing. For me, FreeTaxUsa was the cheapest. I think its free for federal tax filing, but 10 or 15 bucks to file the state taxes.

I do this too. It doesn't take long and I shop around, because I honestly don't trust the calculations given.

Only once in my 15 years did I compare three tax software services and all three gave me dollar values that actually align.

I think people just need to see it to believe it if they've become accustomed to one brand of tax software. I find that they often have the exact same order of data entry. So just opened up 2 or 3 browsers and fill them all out at once. If your tax situation is simple, it goes pretty quick if you have all of your tax documents on hand.

Why the fuck did this take like 15 years to do though?

They've probably pulled this "free" scam a billion times already, and it was obvious AF that it was intentionally deceptive from day one

Because they used all that money they made from the free filings to pay lawyers and lobbyists to show that technically - technically - it really is free from a certain perspective. If you really squint.

Yeah, I'm just so sick of modern "justice". Up until recently I would've had my life destroyed over a bag of weed.

But companies intentionally defraud hundreds of millions of people, that's not a problem

Thats the big question I have. Intuit should be thrown out a window they’re such scumbags.

Because the Traitor Party wants paying taxes to be as difficult as possible so people will vote them in to lower taxes

You need to see the world outside yourself more. Yes, it was obvious to you, not to grandpa or to Marge who works at the diner down the street

  1. I was talking about regulators
  2. apparently you think people are too stupid to know that they were forced to pay for something advertised as free. (Not related to the point but since you brought it up)

Can't agree with you on point 2

This is great! Now I wish they'd stop them from lobbying to make it seem like only TurboTax is the free or "best" way to do your taxes.

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I stopped using TurboTax the year they charged me extra because I had student loans. Also IRS, if you want the money so bad, send me the bill you lazy fucks.

For now, don't forget there is this website (if you make $79,000 or less):

https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free

Also the IRS has been prevented from doing what you want in the past thanks to lobbying by companies like Intuit/H&R block (I'm sure the IRS would prefer a direct method too). Hopefully that's changing soon though, they've started a direct file pilot this year:

https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/direct-file

I think I had two w-2s one year and it wasn’t until the end of the process that they told me it would cost so I grabbed a blank paper return from the library (no printer!) and copied the details over and mailed it in myself. Fuck you Intuit.

Friendly reminder to denigrate Intuit to your friends and coworkers and avoid Mint, Quickbooks, Kredit Karma, Mailchimp, and Turbotax.

My uncle has been using quickbooks for so long that I can’t imagine getting him on anything else. It’s already a nightmare when they force an update for payroll functionality.

The last time I had to upgrade it, they made it difficult to find the version you just buy and redirected me every way they could to the subscription service. I finally got it.

I’d be horrified to switch him to anything else. He’s still freaking out 5 times a week because he can’t find “My Computer”. He finally started adjusting to “Computer” and now it’s “This PC”.

I agree it’s probably not worth the stress (for you or him) to retrain your tech-illiterate family member who has been using the software forever.

I think you can set it back to My Computer with some of the debloat scripts out there. You can also install Classic Shell to make it look more like old Windows.

You can file federal income tax returns for free if you make less than $79,000: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free

I’m partial to freetaxusa, one of the IRS partners. They made it relatively easy to do my Uber taxes without paying anything.

Same. Easier to use and it has lost none of my history unlike TurboTax (which I refuse to use because of their lobbying BS).

Buddy of mine turned me on to them probably 4-5 years ago and I never looked back. Been an overall much better and more affordable experience.

I don't miss playing games trying to get discounts to do my taxes.

I use 1040.com which lets me file federal and state for free and have had 0 problems with it. Highly recommend

You can also download the forms directly from the federal and state revenue services and paper file for the price of printing and postage. For people with just W2 income, a 1040 EZ and the equivalent state form is very easy to fill out. All IRS forms have accompanying instruction documents.

The whole mysterious tax credit thing is a FOMO tactic by the software companies. The majority of people should be taking the standard deduction and probably don't qualify for any credits.

i've always just filed by mail. standard deductions, simple eic look-up. even the se and c forms are a breeze. can use previous year's forms to eyeball what numbers go where--unless they change the damn forms like they did a couple years back. one of the few benefits to not having anything and not making much.

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For the people in the back, if you make less than 56k a year the IRS will do your taxes for you for free. If you make more than that or just don't want to work directly with the IRS then there is www.freetaxusa.com that will also do your taxes for free unless you want to spend like 15$ extra to have a professional help review them

Huge W for the Biden Administration.

I feel like this is the kind of shit he's been coordinating in the background that doesn't get the credit it deserves. Yea yea,I know we are talking about it here but it should be a bigger deal because this is what good government should look like.

Love him or hate him, he's moving th needle in a few areas in a positive way.

I still think he's one of the most underrated Presidents we've ever had.

I'm also stoked for the government funding going towards rail infrastructure.

Why do regular employees have to file their own taxes over there?

If you run a dozen businesses then fair enough, but that shit is not normal.

Answer: This very company in the ruling legally pays our politicians to sway their votes on such matters in a process called lobbying. We could have free, automatically filed taxes like the rest of the developed world, but then intuit wouldn't be able to exploit us for money.

So yeah. "Democracy" and capitalism.

Because the companies that offer tax prep services bribed lobbied to make it that way.

The IRS is doing a direct file pilot this year in 13 states.

FYI for any fellow Americans, you can probably do your taxes actually for free in minutes with well-designed software using cashapp. I've done it for the last two years and it is such a ridiculous upgrade from turbotax it's hard to believe.

I have no idea about their privacy policies or anything like that but I know it's super easy.

I'm sure you mean well but I would strongly strongly encourage folks to use separate companies for specific services. And for something like taxes, something with a history. Companies offering a Swiss-army knife approach to features often half-ass the feature, give up and sell your info to a random company.

Cash App acquired their tax services from Credit Karma, which was highly regarded as a free service. No idea how it is now, but its predecessor was good.