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

Post by tombert » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #194

tombert wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

If it's the first time you've screwed up the return, you might try calling them and ask to have the penalty waived or reduced. That works pretty often on first-time penalties.

Post by pvarangot » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

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.

Post by somethingwitty1 » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #255

mywittyname wrote: post #77

I found out from a friend that she paid $600 to have her taxes done because (presumably) she falls for the dark patterns that TurboTax uses. She's a low paid service worker whose tax return can probably be done for free. And it is a sizable portion of her income because of things like Earned income tax credits, child tax credits, etc. Fuck these companies.

TurboTax's dark patterns charge people $50, not $600. How exactly did she end up paying that much?

Post by ThunderSizzle » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 11:48 PM UTC

_dujt wrote: post #229

tombert wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> need to be part of this transaction at all Because Capitalism, in essence, is the optimization of one particular group’s ability to alter how people live their lives in a way that transfers the most wealth from the working class. America’s economy is a house of cards built around financial middlemen.

Post by aidangrimshaw » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 11:53 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #241

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.