This is the best summary I could come up with:
The ruling includes several pages of commercials and online ads where Intuit advertised its “Free Edition” software.
While the name implies that the service is, well, free, people wound up having to pay to use it — sparking a lawsuit from the FTC and a $141 million payout to affected users.
Meanwhile, Intuit’s actually no-cost Free File version, which it launched in partnership with the IRS, remained exceedingly difficult to find.
In 2021, Intuit exited the program after the IRS stopped letting companies hide their free filing services from search engines.
The FTC’s ALJ determined that there is a “cognizant danger of a recurring violation” by Intuit and issued a cease-and-desist order that prohibits the company from “engaging in deceptive practices in the future.” The ruling prevents Intuit from representing a product as free unless it actually is free for everyone to use and “clearly and conspicuously discloses any terms that would limit the offer.”
In a response provided in advance of the FTC’s ruling, Intuit calls the agency’s investigation process “flawed and highly questionable,” noting “Intuit already adheres to most of the advertising practices in the FTC’s erroneous decision.” The company adds that it has “been clear, fair, and transparent” with customers and remains “committed to free tax preparation.”
The original article contains 297 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 29%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I want to say I’m shocked but I’m not. I can’t even force the free version at this point. I don’t need the benefits of the more expensive variants between them and other options available in my area locally. I just need an easy way to file shiz and keep record throughout the year when I do self employed and occasionally gig stuff.
Everyone of these places wants to make things more difficult to do anything. Esp as someone trying to make due until I can get into a more stable job outside of retail, foodservice and the like(including all super physical jobs that I just can’t do).
I discovered freetaxUSA.com last year, and it was the best thing I have ever seen. Completely free and very very very easy. They do charge $15 for state taxes, but that is about it. They do offer options like audit protection and stuff, but all optional and none of them affects how easy the process is, as they offer them at the end.
I guess there’s that and that is cheaper but still…it stinks we even need to prepare it except when self-employed. Like they report our income with the jobs that do, why we gotta tell them again what we earned 🤷♂️
I 100% agree with you, but we gotta do them for now, and I’ve found out that this is the easiest one and I know Jackshit about taxes. I have been using these predatory fuckers like H&R block and TurboTax and they’ve been taking a good chunk of my money all these years. Until last year when a stranger on Reddit mentioned freetaxusa. The whole thing took me like 20 minutes, and that’s the first time. Next time will be even easier since they saved my info in my profile.
