As the tax filing deadline looms, the 2022 tax season is getting juicy.
On Monday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) formally accused the company that owns TurboTax of tricking people into thinking they can file their taxes for free — when, in reality, many have to pay.
The FTC, an independent government agency focused on consumer protection, filed a legal complaint in California demanding the courts prevent Intuit from widely advertising TurboTax's tax prep services as free. The agency is taking aim at an increasingly common human experience: when you do a bunch of work of filing your taxes online under the impression it's free, only to find out you need to pay up at the end.
While TurboTax is indeed free for some people, the FTC says, others find out "after they have invested time and effort gathering and inputting into TurboTax their sensitive personal and financial information" that they'll need to upgrade to a paid TurboTax version to complete their returns.
That's misleading, according to the complaint.
Intuit disagrees. In a blog post Monday night, the company said the FTC's arguments were "simply not credible," claiming that "over the past eight years, TurboTax products have helped nearly 100 million Americans file their taxes for free."
"Far from steering taxpayers away from free tax preparation offerings, our free advertising campaigns have led to more Americans filing their taxes for free than ever before and have been central...
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