NPR: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/23/1226291903/turbotax-intuit-ftc-free-services
Tech

It is not allowed to say it is free anymore

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Intuit’s ad-supported tax filing software violated the U.S. Treasury Department’s antitrust law in the wake of its first court ruling

The FTC says the company behind the popular tax filing software ran ads that many of them weren’t eligible for.

The New York Attorney General found that Intuit cheated millions of taxpayers out of free tax filing services.

Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, said yesterday that the order also sent a message across industry that is not free for a few or free for some.

The FTC’s final order, issued January 19th, bars Intuit from saying that any of its goods or services are free unless it’s free for all customers or unless the company clearly displays which percentage of consumers qualify or discloses that a majority of consumers aren’t actually eligible. Now, the TurboTax website says roughly 37 percent of filers qualify for its “free” basic tier of tax filing assistance.

“The character of the past violations is egregious. The commission says that for the past six years, Intuit covered the country with deceptive ads to taxpayers across multiple media channels.

The company agreed to pay a total of 141 million to customers as part of a settlement related to its purportedly free tax-filing services. The company did not agree with what happened.

The Commission’s Decision Not to Give a ‘Free’ Service to Intuit and Its Implications for Consumer Protection

“This decision was the result of a broken system in which the Commission served as an accuser, judge, jury and then appellate judge all in the same case,” he said.

Levine said they were upgraded into costly premium and deluxe products. “As the Commission has long understood, ‘free’ is a powerful lure, one that Intuit deployed in scores of ads. Its attempts to qualify its ‘free’ claim were ineffective and often inconspicuous.”

The vast majority of customers of Intuit couldn’t take advantage of what the company claimed it was providing, according to the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

An investigative report by ProPublica found that Intuit tried to stop attempts to make it simpler for Americans.

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