Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission FTC released the initial ruling where TurboTax (Intuit) was deceiving customers with the use of “free” tax preparation that required the payment for those services. Also, this initial ruling could be applied to other “free” promotions that are truly not so.
As mentioned in CNBC’s article, Intuit already had an agreement “… with all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2022 to pay $141 million to users who paid for TurboTax when the filing software should have been free, a deal affecting about 4.4 million consumers.” Now the FTC initial ruling opens the door for a similar agreement or settlement with the Federal government.
Note that the IRS works with different companies to provide free tax preparation online called the IRS Free file. This program also includes the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (Vita) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) programs with physical locations for an onsite tax preparation.
The list of online tax preparation providers can be found here – IRS Free File Online
The VITA and TCE locations can be found here – Free Tax Prep Help (Location)
Link – Takeaways from the Initial Decision in the Intuit TurboTax action
Article CNBC – TurboTax maker Intuit deceived users with offers of ‘free’ tax products, FTC judge rules
