Have you paid money to file your taxes despite using a service that claimed to be “free?” Then odds are, you got roped in by the deceptive advertising of Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax. ProPublica blew the lid off the company’s shell game in 2019, revealing how Intuit intentionally hid free filing options to squeeze money out of consumers — and the federal government is finally going to do something about it. On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced it is suing Intuit for repeatedly misleading Americans in the name of profit.
TurboTax is among the most used services for tax filing, with 56 million people submitting their annual income and earnings through the service in 2021. The appeal is obvious: TurboTax runs constant ads come tax season that boast about free filing, including some commercials that just repeat the word “free” over and over. That makes it quite surprising when, once you’ve entered all your information and go to file your taxes, you’re presented with a fee that you have to pay in order to submit the documents to the government.
