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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

#241

Post by heavyset_go »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #189
heavyset_go wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a CLA? If so, does anything prevent the rights holder(s) from closing the project and pivoting it towards a for-profit business? I'd like to contribute, but don't feel like building someone's business for free.

The project has an AGPL license if that's what you're wondering. We figured many people would feel the same way

AGPL just means that users can fork the project if they have access to older AGPL code, but CLAs that assign copyright mean that the rights holders can change the license whenever they want and make it difficult to find old AGPL code by removing repositories and scrubbing the web of it.

It's entirely possible for the rights holders to say "we're going private now" and pivot the project into a for-profit business.

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

#242

Post by Metacelsus »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #151

I'm working with other contributors on https://ustaxes.org , an open source tax filing webapp https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes . Currently, many Federal tax forms are supported, as well as tax filing for the state of Illinois. Filing for Oregon and California is under development!

Thank you so much! I used it this year and really appreciated it.

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

#243

Post by deathanatos »

jackson1442 wrote: post #222
perardi wrote: post #183

I know, I know, there’s so many dark patterns in TurboTax that it’s cliche to point them out… …but man, this was a particularly egregious example I came across this year. https://imgur.com/ojpLvRW You can pay for TurboTax using your refund…with an additional $39 processing fee . That is just wild.

I think that's actually somewhat standard- even FreeTaxUSA (my personal choice) does this because they're essentially letting you use their product on credit.

I think the objection is not that they're charging a fee, it's that the fee is $39. TurboTax (just the basic federal edition) is what, $30? And yes, this is essentially credit, extended for what, a month? So ($39/$30 * 12) is yearly rate of like 1,560% for that credit, aka., highway robbery — that, I think, is the parent's point.

(I might be a bit off on the price, but not enough to change the result. TurboTax's loss if the debtor here "defaults" somehow is … what, even?)

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

#244

Post by jaguar1878 »

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'…

As others have noted, the IRS doesn't know everything, and some things may be to your advantage to report to them. They could send you a bill and ask you to fix it, but many people wouldn't know where to look to find mistakes.

For example: RSUs and NQSOs (employee stock grants) are in my experience handled extremely poorly by default. If I have RSUs vest when the stock is worth $10 a share, then I pay income tax that year based on income of ($10 x share-count). If I sell those shares later on, my brokerage reports to the IRS either: unknown basis value or $0 basis value. The correct basis value is $10 per share. There's a spot in the tax forms where you can tell the IRS that you have the corrected basis, but if you don't do this, you will pay extra tax, and it's an easy one to miss, especially if you're just importing the 1099-B.

At tax time my brokerage does send me additional forms beyond the 1099-B that include the corrected basis values, so its not that they don't know the right value, they just don't give it to the IRS directly. I assume this is due to IRS/congress rules and not my brokerage being obnoxious.

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

#246

Post by bschwindHN »

aclindsa wrote: post #208

I recently started an open-source tax solver, partly because I'm not a huge fan of Intuit: https://github.com/habutax/habutax It isn't perfect since its a young project, but I've attempted to simplify and modularize the process of creating/maintaining forms to allow for that part to be crowd-sourced as much as possible (and I'd love your help!).

Seems like you should combine forces with ustaxes.org?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30848936

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

#247

Post by greeneggs »

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.

That's not exactly true. Free filing is also opposed by influential conservatives. The argument goes that if paying taxes were easier, then people wouldn't pay as much attention and oppose taxes as much. (I'm paraphrasing as best I can.)

Here's an old article from 2013 on it, for example, and a letter from Grover Norquist (sponsor of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge) and others.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax...

https://www.atr.org/taxpayer-advocates-issue-joint-free-file...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Taxpa...

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

#249

Post by ghaff »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #218
wolverine876 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about my family discussions. Just turn on the local news and you'll see them discuss it, including the annual segment about the lines at the post office.

Ah. For what it's worth -- and it's possible I'm living in a bubble, but -- the only family member I know that watches the news is my dad. Everyone else quietly switched to netflix long ago. The news mostly comes from the drama of the day; things that show up on facebook. (The recent Chris Rock drama, and other nonsense like that.) I recently followed CBS on TikTok though, to my surprise. They had some of the best co…

April 15 (ok. Sometimes a few days later based on holidays.) is pretty engrained into the minds of adult Americans who pay taxes. I have rarely watched tv news in years and don’t even get it any longer. But I can pretty much guarantee if you asked a bunch of middle class adults when tax day is, an overwhelming majority would tell you the correct answer.

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

#250

Post by jawshoeadan »

jawshoeadan wrote: post #248

https://turbotaxsucksass.org/

Oh shit didn’t even realize this “ ntuit has elected not to renew its participation in the IRS Free File Program and will no longer be offering IRS Free File Program delivered by TurboTax” Go to hell intuit. https://freefile.intuit.com/
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