back to article Intuit ordered to use the word 'free' less freely in its ads

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, is no longer free to tout its tax filing software as "free" when it isn't free to most customers. America's Federal Trade Commission on Monday – in time for the annual tax season – said the financial software maker engaged in deceptive advertising when it ran ads for "free" tax products and …

  1. David 132 Silver badge

    Screw Intuit

    This is the company that lobbied for years to shut down any attempt by the IRS to offer its own free online filing system.

    Nail Intuit to the proverbial door. Couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Screw Intuit

      I upvoted you, even though you are being too nice.

    2. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Screw Intuit

      Republicans are already talking about shutting down the IRS free file thing. Because 1) they hate the IRS and constantly want to cut their budget 2) they hate the government doing anything that the private sector could be doing, even if the private sector is screwing people while doing it 3) Intuit knows 1) and 2) and will be showering cash on republicans in this election year to make this "problem" go away.

      So don't get your hopes up about filing free with the IRS. Even if Biden is re-elected and regardless of who controls congress budgets are always a give and take and supporting IRS free file is probably not at the top of democrat lists for "stuff to keep" when the horse trading begins.

  2. EricB123 Silver badge

    Substitutes

    " citing a 30-second "Game Show" ad in which participants said the word "free" about 35 times."

    I wonder how many times they could instead say the word 'bullshit' in the same 30 second ad.

    1. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: Substitutes

      "I wonder how many times they could instead say the word 'bullshit' in the same 30 second ad."

      Probably about 17 or so times as it has two syllables as opposed to 'free' having one.

  3. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
    Mushroom

    Not just Intuit / Turbo Tax

    TaxAct (aka TaxACT), H&R Block, and (at least a few) other web-based tax filing systems do the same thing: start for free, but the moment you ask for Form XY, or answer "yes" to a question leading to that form, you've been baited and here's the switch.

    I've been trying to use truly-free alternatives for a while, but I won't shamelessly plug them this year (unless someone asks). My returns -- joint with the missus -- aren't "simple" but are pretty consistent year-to-year, so navigating the process stays pretty much the same. Even if I receive an unexpected form in the mail, the internal search lets me figure it out rather easily, and I always look over the entire stack (as a PDF) before filing.

    (One year I put all the same info into TaxAct, looked at the free pre-filing "summary" page, and found the math was different -- not enough details to figure out exactly what step -- and my preferred vendor was in my favor. If the IRS had complained, I would have gladly paid the < $20 difference.)

    Icon ---> Blow up the tax industry, reform the whole system and bring it all in-house to the IRS where it belongs. (And contract my employer for the necessary IT work! Doesn't help my job specifically, but it's good for the company.)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not just Intuit / Turbo Tax

      Please, please plug them. I'm so sick of being offered "free" filing by various companies only to spend 2 hours entering info before they finally go "actually, yours won't be free". (Or "well, federal is free but state is $...") Here's my <sarcasm> incredibly complicated </sarcasm> list of tax items:

      W2, including contributions to HSA and 401(k)

      Withdrawals from HSA to pay medical bills

      Mortgage interest and real estate tax

      Checking/savings account interest

      Dividends and capital gains distributions

      State/local vehicle tax

      Charitable contributions

      Can't think of anything else offhand. Honestly, all this is pretty standard and the IRS already has the vast majority of it; in a sane world, I could simply declare my charitable contributions and have the IRS tell me what I owe, but apparently I don't live in a sane world.

      1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

        Re: Not just Intuit / Turbo Tax

        "Cash App Taxes". From their help pages: "Cash App Taxes is always free to prepare and file federal and single-state income tax returns, regardless of adjusted gross income." They do admit there are limitations, "like if you lived and worked in different states, or had foreign income over $600" (and other situations) -- they still won't charge, because they can't handle those at all.

        It used to be "Credit Karma Tax", part of the credit-watch firm Credit Karma, but when their credit-bureau owner (Transunion or Experian) sold Karma off to Intuit, they naturally had to spin the Tax portion off to someone else.

        The downsides are 1) you have to sign up for Cash App, and 2) Cash App (parent/subsidiaries/etc.) will have your tax info, and may actually do things with it, so read the Ts&Cs.

        Caveats: I never use Cash App for anything else, IANAL, and I'm not paid to advertise.

    2. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: Not just Intuit / Turbo Tax

      "found the math was different"

      Here in the UK, any errors identified by HMRC are automatically assumed to be the tax payer's fault, even if the software is the cause. And I remember a while back when working on a tax calculator application that the HMRC guidance stated categorically that calculation errors were not their problem even if their guidance was the cause of the error.

  4. Robert 22

    Part of the problem is the complexity of the tax system, in large part due to the influence of special interests and the micro-targeting of selected voting blocs by politicians.

    Not sure about all the intricacies of the US system, but I can say that the Canadian system is sufficiently complicated that the ordinary taxpayer doesn't have a hope of filling out the paperwork without tax software.

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