"Intuit baits consumers with deceptive ads and then compound the deception with more false claims and buried disclosures." "Intuit continues to bombard consumers with the message that they can file their taxes for 'free,'" it reads. The website didn't adequately explain to customers what a "simple tax return" is, nor make it easy to find out early on in the tax filing process, according to the complaint. The complaint claims there are similar issues about transparency on TurboTax's homepage. The FTC alleges the fine-print disclaimers are flashed quickly, in small text and often not read aloud. There are some TurboTax commercials, the FTC argues, "in which almost every word spoken is the word 'free'" despite the fact that prep is actually only free for certain taxpayers with simple returns.
The FTC criticizes TurboTax on several fronts - in particular, its ads that have been promoting "freemium" products on TV and the internet since at least 2016. Get Started TurboTax's 'deceptive' business practices
McLean said that the company's ads have contributed to the adoption of free TurboTax products, "driving approximately 60% growth from 11 million free filers in 2018 before the campaign launched to more than 17 million free filers in 2021." At the end of last July, TurboTax says it had processed over 45 million federal tax returns.Īnthem Tax Relief provides a full menu of tax relief services to help clients get out from under the yoke of tax debt.
"Far from steering taxpayers away from free tax preparation offerings, our free advertising campaigns have led to more Americans filing their taxes for free than ever before and have been central to raising awareness of free tax prep," Kerry McLean, executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. In a blog post Monday night, the company said the FTC's arguments were "simply not credible," claiming that "over the past eight years, TurboTax products have helped nearly 100 million Americans file their taxes for free." Hawaii Alaska Florida South Carolina Georgia Alabama North Carolina Tennessee RI Rhode Island CT Connecticut MA Massachusetts Maine NH New Hampshire VT Vermont New York NJ New Jersey DE Delaware MD Maryland West Virginia Ohio Michigan Arizona Nevada Utah Colorado New Mexico South Dakota Iowa Indiana Illinois Minnesota Wisconsin Missouri Louisiana Virginia DC Washington DC Idaho California North Dakota Washington Oregon Montana Wyoming Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Pennsylvania Kentucky Mississippi Arkansas Texas Get Started That's misleading, according to the complaint.
While TurboTax is indeed free for some people, the FTC says, others find out "after they have invested time and effort gathering and inputting into TurboTax their sensitive personal and financial information" that they'll need to upgrade to a paid TurboTax version to complete their returns. The agency is taking aim at an increasingly common human experience: when you do a bunch of work of filing your taxes online under the impression it's free, only to find out you need to pay up at the end. The FTC, an independent government agency focused on consumer protection, filed a legal complaint in California demanding the courts prevent Intuit from widely advertising TurboTax's tax prep services as free. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) formally accused the company that owns TurboTax of tricking people into thinking they can file their taxes for free - when, in reality, many have to pay. As the tax filing deadline looms, the 2022 tax season is getting juicy.