This CNN Business article reports on an FTC regulatory enforcement action banning TurboTax from deceptive 'free' service advertising. The content documents governmental protection of consumer rights through enforcement of truth-in-advertising standards, advocating for transparency and fairness in marketplace practices. The editorial tone supports consumer protection and regulatory accountability, though the broader domain context shows structural privacy tensions through extensive user data collection.
Intuit is an embarrassment of a tech company. Instead of innovating in software, they've invested infinitely more in lobbying to keep tax-filing complex and in creating new and innovative dark patterns to obscure their (federally mandated, btw) free product.
> This decision is the result of a biased and broken system where the Commission serves as accuser, judge, jury, and then appellate judge all in the same case
Interesting argument, but also a distraction from "we lied in advertising."
> It could also clearly disclose the percentage of customers that actually do qualify for the free service, somewhere close to the “free” claim advertised, the commission said.
They ran an ad during the 49ers game this weekend, centered around it being free for the character in the ad. I'm guessing that's how they'll work around this.
I just saw an TurboTax Ad where a guy was like "I Like free stuff" and then it said he was "happy to read the disclaimer" on TurboTax and see that "Roughly 37% of taxpayers qualify" which he looks thoughtfully in the distance and says "Thats me!"
I thought it was a funny commercial because 37% doesn't seem like a lot and Turbotax is portraying it as the average person will identify themselves as part of that 37% even though that is not too far off form just 1/3 people so a minority of people.
It was one of the few times I saw a company blatantly lean into the negatives in their fine print and just outright tell you its good.
I've only ever used the installable version of TurboTax, and I knew up front that I'd have to pay for CA filing.
How transparent is the web site version? Do you have to spend an hour entering all your tax info just to find out that you'll have to pay to file? Or are they pretty good about notifying you up front?
In the paid installable version, I can still print out my CA tax return and mail it in to avoid paying the e-filing fee, but I'm not sure how that works with the web version, either.
Most countries governments are crap at software yet still manage to put together a free to use tax portal with automatic filing for all but the most complex cases.
It's 2024. It's beyond time for the IRS to offer free tax filing online.
You've been able to file for free on paper since forever. But again, it's 2024. Paper is not a reasonable solution for either filers or the IRS in 2024. It's difficult to handle, error-prone, and all the software they use to validate paper forms could be repurposed to accept online forms.
And the online forms should be pre-filled with all the information the IRS already has about your income for the prior year.
It's not acceptable to have to pay companies like Intuit (and give them all your personal financial information) for software to file an individual tax return. I don't care if you're wealthy or poor, this should be free and provided by the IRS.
Contact your representatives. Demand that they get it done.
In Sweden, for most citizen the tax authority does the tax declaration for you. If you don't want to do any changes (which most people doesn't have to), you simply write a text to them [1].
While they're at it, they should go after services that include "free benefits" as a part of the service. The word "free" occurs 24 times in this list of what you get access to by paying $150 a year: https://web.archive.org/web/20240123132728/https://www.amazo...
The part of me that reveres clear, concise, correct communication appreciates any effort to encourage factual correctness. However, the cynically jaded part of me concedes that this battle has already been lost - at least in the public sphere of communication (eg politics, advertising, journalism, social media, corporate comms).
Anyone paying attention already knows that anything of value you don't pay for directly will have indirect costs, most often in the form of strings attached, advertising, upsells and annoyances. Today, whenever I hear something offered for "Free" it immediately implies two things. First, any actual value on offer is relatively low (or net negative), and second, the entity offering it has made a choice to obfuscate the true cost for reasons I'd need to understand before engaging.
This means I probably don't want it and even if I might want something like the promise of it, I'd have to navigate and parse a maze of obfuscation crafted by someone who's already not being entirely upfront with me. Since A) I generally value my time (and related intangibles like vendor grief, inconsistency, etc) more than my money, and B) I've learned I'm usually not happy with the lower cost versions of things that matter to me - I've adopted a default stance of "I don't want anything that's free". It's possible I'm some kind of oddball outlier but I don't think so. In fact, I'm fairly confident a good chunk of the highly-desirable "reasonably affluent consumer" segment are similarly jaded and now associate any offer pushing "FREE" in the top-line with a negative connotation.
Good. I decided to boycott Intuit after one too many dark UI/email patterns. They lie to you in their marketing emails. To opt out you need to enter an entire page's worth of personal information (I thought there was a 1-click unsubscribe law?). Using TurboTax, I've lost count of the number of times I've gotten to the end of the process and discovered that they quietly upsold me 12 screens back, knowing that most customers just say "screw it, I'll pay the $100."
I switched to FreeTaxUSA.com last year and it was dead simple. Never going back.
Also, the only reason I used Mint was to see a net worth widget on my phone. During the forced migration to Credit Karma, halfway through being made to create an entirely new account, I found that they have no such widget. Bye.
I think this is good. I rarely watch network TV, and when I do I'm surprised by how maliciously misleading the advertisements often are. Every "only $X per month" claim is undercut by something explaining that it doesn't really apply. I noticed watching the NFL playoffs that Intuit is a big abuser of this advertising technique, constantly claiming their tax filing product is free, when this is not really the case from a normal human point of view.
I would like to see "fine print" completely disallowed for video ads. Don't let people read out loud a claim like "Get your blah for free" or "For only thirty dollars a month", if that claim is only legal because the exceptions are explained in words too small for most people to notice.
I feel that advertisements that say “could be free” or “up to X% off”, or similar should only be legal if the statements are accurate for the overwhelming majority of customers.
E.g you could advertise “free filing” if your free filing applied to 90% off people filing on your platform, you could say up to 20% off everything if more than 90% of expected sales are in the 19-20% range (also prohibit”sale” prices that are functionally the normal price with a fake markdown)
They are not a tech company. They are a regulatory capture company that uses tech to extract from the general public what should be free. The code and platform are the performance art to enable the rake.
Edit: Meant to scope this comment solely to TurboTax. Replies correcting me are well deserved.
Free government-provided tax calculators and online filing are an existential threat to Intuit. I think that the business should not exist (or should be scaled down to a fraction of its size, as an accountant's tool), but can you blame them for trying to block the deathblow?
>they've invested infinitely more in lobbying to keep tax-filing complex
I always feel the need to point out that anger at this is misplaced. Intuit is a business lobbying on behalf of itself like countless other businesses do. If the result makes you upset, you should be upset at our political system and the politicians who are willing to sell out the country for whatever those lobbyists are pushing. It is those politicians who are supposed to prioritize the good of the country, not Intuit or their lobbyists.
Intuit also produces Quickbooks -- which actually is SMB accounting software, and used internationally.
As most of their revenue is from businesses who wouldn't easily be able to free-file, I wouldn't be surprised if Intuit's lobbying to prevent a free tax filing offering from the government was causing them more harm than good.
I've been using https://www.freetaxusa.com/ the last couple years and plan to continue this year. It is free for Federal (though I usually pay for an upgrade), and state is $15. The only option I know of for free state is to do the forms manually.
I agree on every level, but I'm compelled to remind you this is the America where wendy's (?) had to revert to a 1/4 pounder from a 1/3 pounder bc people thought they were getting less meat. And let's not forget the ever-present anti-education cohort that can't be convinced math is good even when you tell them it's how you calculate discounts or tips.
You knew you would have to pay for the ca version, but did you know how much you had to pay at the beginning. I buy the disk at Costco every year and feel the pricing is anything but transparent and they are very misleading. It includes the state free but only paper file and $10 credit for a mystery price state return
If your income is low enough, all of the main tools
If not, then federal free through FreeTaxUSA. Depending on your state, the state taxes manually via PDF + paper may be extremely quick - like five or so lines, and a single table lookup.
This will get stayed during the appeal, so status quo will remain for this tax season. And next year there are many new variables, potentially a new government, SC's Chevron ruling which may limit what FTC can do, etc. I don't think this is going to stick.
Next I’d like them to go after windshield chip repair shops and pharmacies that advertise “free*” services. Where free == paid by your insurance. Assuming your insurance will pay for all of it.
Free doesn’t mean paid for someone you paid to handle it for you.
Could you say more about the "self filing app"? A quick Google search didn't turn up anything (which probably says more about my current lack of sleep than anything :) )
If you're standard deduction and just have a few simple sources of income, filing is easily free. Should it be electronic and pre-filled? Yes. But this idea that you need an accountant or tax prep software if you have a W-2 and a 1099 just isn't true. The forms are free.
Are they leaning in to it or are they forced to fit in the disclaimer?
Seems like the strategy of the ad is to repeat the word "Free" so much people don't remember the rest and to make it seem like the disclaimer is meaningless. Even with it, it's still free.
I was pretty sure when first seeing it that they'd already gotten in trouble for their last ads that used the word "free" a lot, and this was a very direct response to that... I guess that's just the final decision that's being reported on here.
How this ad got green lit, distributed to various mediums (tv ads, yt channel, social media), and nobody saying “wait, this is terrible” is unfathomable to me.
TurboTax is marketing to the kind of people who think getting big refunds is a good thing. That's generally people with lower incomes, so this fits that target.
Isn't a 1040-EZ free and takes 10 minutes? My tax situation is kind of complicated and costs me like $150 for all of the things TurboTax finds, figures out, calculates, submits, and all in a nice UI. Can someone please explain to me what is so horrible about paying a reasonable fee to figure out some complicated stuff that amounts to 80+ pages of filing docs? And free if it's EZ? And free if low income?
To be fair, in Sweden the taxes are also insane. I’d rather have to pay some middleman a paltry sum every year than pay 30% more tax just for the privilege of the government automatically calculating them for me.
Not saying the US shouldn’t do this automatically, I’m merely pointing out it’s not a 1 to 1 comparison.
Article documents regulatory remedy and effective recourse against corporate deception, exemplifying access to legal protection.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article reports FTC ban as regulatory remedy against deceptive advertising
Story demonstrates governmental enforcement mechanism responding to consumer complaint/violation
Inferences
The FTC action represents effective legal remedy protecting consumers' right to truthful information
News coverage of enforcement action strengthens accountability and remedy visibility
+0.30
Article 19Freedom of Expression
Medium Framing Coverage
Editorial
+0.30
SETL
+0.24
Article exercises freedom of expression by reporting on regulatory action; the story itself supports right to receive truthful information about deceptive practices.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Article headline and reporting exercise freedom of the press to inform public about FTC enforcement
Story documents consumer protection through access to truthful information about corporate deception
Public access to article without paywall supports information freedom
Inferences
The article advocates for informed citizenry by exposing deceptive marketplace practices
News coverage supports freedom to receive and share information about regulatory enforcement
+0.20
PreamblePreamble
Medium Framing Coverage
Editorial
+0.20
SETL
+0.20
Article framing emphasizes regulatory enforcement against deceptive practices that undermine human dignity and equal treatment in marketplace.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Headline states 'FTC bans TurboTax from advertising free services, calls it deceptive'
Page published by CNN Business division on 2024-01-22
Article documents regulatory action against corporate deception
Inferences
The regulatory action protects consumer equality by enforcing truthful marketplace information
The news coverage itself exercises freedom to report on governmental protective action
+0.20
Article 1Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
Medium Advocacy
Editorial
+0.20
SETL
+0.24
Regulatory enforcement against deceptive practices supports equal dignity by protecting consumers from manipulation.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Story reports on FTC regulatory action against TurboTax
News framing emphasizes consumer deception as regulatory violation
Inferences
The article advocates for enforcement of consumer protection principles grounded in equality and dignity
+0.20
Article 7Equality Before Law
Medium Advocacy
Editorial
+0.20
SETL
+0.20
FTC enforcement action exemplifies equal protection by holding corporation accountable to consumer protection law.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Story documents FTC regulatory enforcement against corporate deceptive practice
FTC action applies legal standards equally to corporation and consumers
Inferences
The enforcement action protects equal protection by ensuring no entity can deceive consumers with impunity
+0.20
Article 17Property
Medium Advocacy
Editorial
+0.20
SETL
+0.20
Article protects consumer interest in intellectual property and fair exchange when technology/software is marketed deceptively.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Story reports on regulatory action protecting consumer property/financial interests
build 73de264+3rh4 · deployed 2026-02-28 13:33 UTC · evaluated 2026-02-28 13:37:02 UTC
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