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FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#141

Post by UncleMeat »

junar wrote: post #123
UncleMeat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with CPAs has been poor. "I dunno, just put what you think is right" is how the last person I paid told me to handle a mismatch between my wife's actually grant payments and her 1098-T.

1098-T forms are notoriously unreliable. Schools will often misclassify or omit scholarships and payments. And you might have additional educational expenses like books that aren't listed in the first place. It doesn't excuse your experience, though; that tax preparer should have made a better effort to understand the figures. Out of curiosity, was the tax preparer actually a licensed CPA, or just someone with no pro…

> 1098-T forms are notoriously unreliable. Schools will often misclassify or omit scholarships and payments. And you might have additional educational expenses like books that aren't listed in the first place.

Worse, virtually all of the 1098-T guidance exists for undergrads. The problems with the form are entirely different for graduate students and basically nobody can help.

> Out of curiosity, was the tax preparer actually a licensed CPA, or just someone with no professional credentials? If they were a CPA, did they prepare individual tax returns regularly or only as a side job?

It's been a bunch of years so I don't know for certain, but they weren't just a desk worker at H&R Block. Tax preparation was their primary job.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#142

Post by thepangolino »

tombert wrote: post #128
ngokevin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has enough information to process the taxes for most of us or at least publicly make it super easy. TurboTax just lobbies the government to not do so.

About two weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS telling me that I owe an extra eight-thousand dollars from my 2020 return, with a $1000 fine and $200 interest as a result. [1] I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if they have enough information to know that I underreported, then why am I part of this equation to begin with? Clearly they have enough of my tax data to know I screwed up, so why don'…

No post body was provided.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#143

Post by saddestcatever »

itslennysfault wrote: post #136
kn0where wrote: post #43

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled l…

.... and just to be completely clear, this is only the way it is because of HUGE lobbying spends by Intuit.

IMO: The mind blowing element, is that in the grand scheme of things It's not actually that much money.

I'm not sure if anyone knows the true amount, but estimates put the number spent on lobbying around a few million dollars. Opensecrets.org estimated ~$3.2m lobbying in 2021.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

For a company that makes $2 BILLION dollars a year, the amount they actually spend lobbying and otherwise influencing governments is shockingly small.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#144

Post by dudul »

itslennysfault wrote: post #138
notch656a wrote: post #45

The fact that our government doesn't have the collective intelligence to just mail the tax bill using the information it already knows, with the option for the recipient to submit corrections/deductions, is a testament to the utter failure of governance in the US. Fortunately having an ineffective government can often be a feature instead of a bug.

Blame Intuit for that one too. They're the ones that have spent millions to lobby to keep it this way.

Or blame the people who take the money and bend over in front of lobbies.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#145

Post by sillysaurusx »

kn0where wrote: post #43

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled l…

I tried to make this point in the other thread, so let me take another stab at it here.

You say this like it's just a thing that people can do. But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for error.

"Most Americans" is an umbrella that contains mostly service workers. The people that serve you food, bag your groceries, drive your amazon purchases, and so on. If you've spent a lot of time with people like this, I encourage you to ask them "Hey, do you pay someone to do your taxes, or do you do it yourself? Why?"

I'm pretty sure the conversation will go "I pay. I just don't want to worry about it." And that "worry" is because they've been hit hard in the wallet, because the (American) government is not friendly when it comes to messing up your taxes.

If I am mistaken about this, I would like to know. But this is true of my extended family, and I'm pretty sure it's true for most of their friends.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#146

Post by judge2020 »

kn0where wrote: post #43

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled l…

Isn’t the free file system simply asking e-file companies to offer a free program to qualifying customers? I thought that the IRS didn’t actually run their own filling system/website for citizens.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#147

Post by drdec »

jfengel wrote: post #74
ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #6

Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money?

If you made under $100,000 from salary and don't otherwise have any complications (like dependents), a form 1040EZ really is simple. There's no reason to use software for that. It's quite straightforward. If you have deductions, stock sales, a nanny, a business, etc then you need the regular 1040 and various schedules, and those are all complex enough that you'd probably benefit from software. It's not absolutely req…

FYI, the 1040EZ form no longer exists. It was eliminated in the name of simplifying the forms (don't ask me how that's supposed to work).

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#148

Post by lupire »

tombert wrote: post #128
ngokevin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has enough information to process the taxes for most of us or at least publicly make it super easy. TurboTax just lobbies the government to not do so.

About two weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS telling me that I owe an extra eight-thousand dollars from my 2020 return, with a $1000 fine and $200 interest as a result. [1] I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if they have enough information to know that I underreported, then why am I part of this equation to begin with? Clearly they have enough of my tax data to know I screwed up, so why don'…

You can file taxes without a software package, if you want. You have to file because they want you to report things they don't know about, and also if you want to claim itemized deductions.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#149

Post by alasdair_ »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #133
cmelbye wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are audited by the IRS and they find that you overpaid, they will issue a refund. It's not a one-way street.

you can also claim refunds for years back; like an audit this is a 2-way street as well.

It isn’t equal however. If you underpay, the IRS has seven years to get the money. If you overpay, you have three. (Simplified of course)

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#150

Post by function_seven »

antsar wrote: post #126
cmelbye wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are audited by the IRS and they find that you overpaid, they will issue a refund. It's not a one-way street.

Sure. But why in the world would they audit you if you overpaid?

Whatever indicators they use to select audit recipients may correlate with under-payers, but it's not a guarantee. I'm sure there's some fraction of those they audit that turn out to have paid too much.
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