Moreover, TurboTax’s website included a “Products and Pricing” page that stated it would “recommend the right tax solution,” but never displayed or recommended the IRS Free File program, even when consumers were ineligible for the “freemium” product. Intuit also purposefully blocked its IRS Free File landing page from search engine results during the 2019 tax filing season, effectively shutting out eligible taxpayers from filing their taxes for free. Intuit bid on paid search advertisements to direct consumers who were looking for the IRS Free File product to the TurboTax “freemium” product instead. The company used confusingly similar names for both its IRS Free File product and its commercial “freemium” product. The multistate investigation found that Intuit engaged in several deceptive and unfair trade practices that limited consumers’ participation in the IRS Free File Program. In contrast, the TurboTax Free File product was free for 70 percent of taxpayers. However, the TurboTax “freemium” product is only free for approximately one-third of US taxpayers. In some ads, the company repeated the word “free” dozens of times in as short as 30 seconds. In recent years, TurboTax has marketed this “freemium” product aggressively, including through ad campaigns where “free” is the most prominent or sometimes the only selling point. In addition, Intuit offers a commercial product called “TurboTax Free Edition,” which is only free for taxpayers with “simple returns” as defined by Intuit. In exchange for participating in the program, the IRS agreed not to compete with Intuit and other tax-prep companies by providing its own electronic tax preparation and filing services to American taxpayers. One was through its participation in the IRS Free File Program, a public-private partnership with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which allows taxpayers earning roughly $34,000 and members of the military to file their taxes for free. Intuit has offered two free versions of TurboTax. “Turbo Tax used slick marketing tactics to lure in people who can least afford to spend their money on tax services.”Īn investigation into Intuit began after ProPublica reported that the company was using deceptive digital tactics to steer low-income consumers toward its commercial products and away from federally-supported free tax services. But, when a product says “free,” it has to be free, free, free,” said Attorney General Rosenblum.

“Over seventy-thousand Oregonians signed up with Turbo Tax for an easy way to do their taxes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have signed onto the agreement. Impacted consumers will automatically receive notices and a check by mail.Īs part of the settlement, Intuit must suspend TurboTax’s “free, free, free” ad campaign that lured customers with promises of free tax preparation services, only to deceive them into paying for services. In Oregon, Intuit will send out checks to 71,230 Oregonians for $29.64 in restitution each. (Intuit), for deceiving over 4.6 million consumers nationally into paying for tax services that should have been free. Posted in Consumer Protection, Media ReleaseĪs part of a country-wide settlement, Attorney General Rosenblum today secured $2.1 million for Oregon from TurboTax, Intuit Inc.

Turbotax refund 2016