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FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

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Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#51

Post by jjtheblunt »

eli wrote: post #38
MR4D wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who may not understand your comment, this is a summary of the issue at hand here [0] and some commentary here [1]. [0] - https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2023/06/12/ftc-dim... [1] - https://ogletree.com/insights/supreme-court-ruling-questions...

Conservatives hate the administrative state and want to destroy it. They would prefer the free market solve all problems instead of regulators like the SEC or FTC or EPA. The Federalist Society has been workshopping this fringe theory that Congress isn't allowed to delegate enforcement decisions to federal agencies and that administrative judges are somehow unconstitutional. This was an unsuccessful (!) argument agai…

what does "workshopping" mean here?

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#52

Post by andykellr »

Beached wrote: post #50
ortusdux wrote: post #21

Can we just switch to pre-filled tax forms already? The average American spends about $200/year and 12hrs preparing their taxes. This study from last year found that pre-filled tax forms would be accurate for 42-48% of people. That is already amazing, and I'm sure that number could be doubled over 10-20 years. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008

how would you handle the large number of deductions and credits everyone files for yearly? does the fed know of o bought a solar generator and plan on taking a credit? do they know if I had my windows replaced and plan on a deduction? do they know how many square feet my at home office is, or how much I spent in supplies? do they know if I plan on taking the general deduction or itemizing?

All of those purchases and deductions put you outside of the 42-48% that the parent is referencing.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#53

Post by Forge36 »

Beached wrote: post #50
ortusdux wrote: post #21

Can we just switch to pre-filled tax forms already? The average American spends about $200/year and 12hrs preparing their taxes. This study from last year found that pre-filled tax forms would be accurate for 42-48% of people. That is already amazing, and I'm sure that number could be doubled over 10-20 years. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008

how would you handle the large number of deductions and credits everyone files for yearly? does the fed know of o bought a solar generator and plan on taking a credit? do they know if I had my windows replaced and plan on a deduction? do they know how many square feet my at home office is, or how much I spent in supplies? do they know if I plan on taking the general deduction or itemizing?

File your own not using the pre-filled forms as you do today? While it won't for some doesn't mean it can't be the default option for many

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#54

Post by gavinhoward »

Loughla wrote: post #45
gavinhoward wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative of a FreeTaxUSA employee here. > The name sounds super sketchy, but they're legit. I've told them to change their name, and my relative has told them to change their name. Their marketing department is...dumb, IMO. (My relative told me about a semi-recent marketing campaign, and it was laughable.) But quite frankly, I prefer a company where the marketing department is the only incompetent one.

Tell your relative they're doing really good work, but a little change to their website might do wonders. Nothing crazy, maybe just something to make them not look like identity thieves. >I prefer a company where the marketing department is the only incompetent one. I have never thought about that, but it is exactly spot on. They're really good at what they do and really bad at selling it. Word of mouth seems to be t…

> Tell your relative they're doing really good work, but a little change to their website might do wonders.

You're absolutely correct. Fortunately, my relative is aware. Unfortunately, she's tried to tell them, and they don't believe her.

It annoys her so much.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#55

Post by OkayPhysicist »

floren wrote: post #44
ortusdux wrote: post #21

Can we just switch to pre-filled tax forms already? The average American spends about $200/year and 12hrs preparing their taxes. This study from last year found that pre-filled tax forms would be accurate for 42-48% of people. That is already amazing, and I'm sure that number could be doubled over 10-20 years. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008

How do you know if you're one of the 42-48%, though? I'd love easier taxes, but not if I've got a 50/50 chance of getting hassled over it in a year.

I suspect that number would go way up by just providing a way to declare your dependents.

Right now, for the vast majority of the population, especially those who don't just pay an accountant, their taxes consist of a "Where's Waldo" copy-and-paste adventure combining information from their W-2s and 1099s onto a handful of other forms, then adding up like 3 numbers. If that describes your tax filing experience, a pre-filled form would be perfect. Any omitted details are more likely to be in the government's favor than your own.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#56

Post by JAlexoid »

ortusdux wrote: post #21

Can we just switch to pre-filled tax forms already? The average American spends about $200/year and 12hrs preparing their taxes. This study from last year found that pre-filled tax forms would be accurate for 42-48% of people. That is already amazing, and I'm sure that number could be doubled over 10-20 years. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008

There's probably not a single lawmaker that they don't have on the hooks, along with a litany of CPA's who's sole existence depends on you requiring to have someone just input numbers into Intuit QuickBooks.

And most Americans just pretend that it's "fine".

Fun fact - to avoid under-withholding my CPA wants to charge me $2300 per year, that's not tax deductible. A simple thing of making sure that my withholdings are correct throughout the year and I don't have to pay IRS more in April...

So no. This is a corrupt system, that most Americans just pretend is "the norm".

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#57

Post by mrguyorama »

distract8901 wrote: post #36
Loughla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used them for five or six years. They keep getting better. The name sounds super sketchy, but they're legit. They do charge for oddball forms, but they're super up front about that. Like when you select the forms they tell you the price. I have multiple income streams and multiple weirdo tax situations (farming, day job, three consulting firms, my own consulting) and it still only takes me 30 minutes to do my ta…

The name is sketchy and the website is just as bad. Every instinct I have says they're a shady scam site just waiting to steal my info. But no, they're actually good and just have terrible marketing and design. Sure makes doing my taxes interesting. I've been using them for three years

>But no, they're actually good and just have terrible marketing and design.

Maybe we should realize WE are in the wrong for conflating "Shiny, animation filled website" with "not scam".

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#58

Post by harikb »

JAlexoid wrote: post #32
electrondood wrote: post #3

Intuit is guilty of using a whole range of dark UI patterns to trick people into paying for products they don't need. Last year I almost paid $80 (surprise at the END of the entire TurboTax flow) and clicked back 10 steps to realize that they showed a deceptive screen that implied that you had to select that option. Their marketing emails are particularly deceptive, and if you try to opt out of them and unsubscribe,…

I mean... They pay off literally every single lawmaker, to make sure that you will pay them for doing your taxes. If you had any respect for them at any time, you probably shouldn't have. The level of corruption that they support is stunningly humongous. And even if you're using your "local tax person" - you're likely to be still making them money... as many CPAs use Intuit's software.

My tax guy uses Intuit Software as well. And I pay him 10x the cost of Turbo Tax. But I pay him for expertise / peace of mind.

Intuit can fleece me all they want. Give me non-BS advanced features and I will gladly pay way more. Just don't trick my mom & dad. But I guess they need to make their money from the masses.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#59

Post by mrguyorama »

nickff wrote: post #40
eli wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives hate the administrative state and want to destroy it. They would prefer the free market solve all problems instead of regulators like the SEC or FTC or EPA. The Federalist Society has been workshopping this fringe theory that Congress isn't allowed to delegate enforcement decisions to federal agencies and that administrative judges are somehow unconstitutional. This was an unsuccessful (!) argument agai…

Have you looked at the statistics on how ALJs rule, and how long they take to do it? The “administrative law” system is extremely Kafka-esque.

A system working poorly doesn't make it unconstitutional. It also doesn't prevent it from being slightly modified to work well.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#60

Post by OkayPhysicist »

dmoy wrote: post #37
datadrivenangel wrote: post #8

After a surprise bill of over $100 from H&R block I've been using FreeTaxUSA and have been very happy to pay $15 for state filing. The UI is just as good as TurboTax or H&R block.

The UI for 8949 is worse than TurboTax, for the edge case of having a lot of non-covered shares. (Technically you can mail a paper copy of all the 1099-B to the IRS to work around this problem) And I think some 1099-R codes used to have buggy question flow, but it's better now. So far that's the only two things I've found worse than TurboTax, and certainly not worth paying Intuit for.

> (Technically you can mail a paper copy of all the 1099-B to the IRS to work around this problem)

I do this every year. Got into the habit because some index fund thing I had a couple bucks of in my portfolio did some weird shit with stock dividends and ended up producing over a hundred transactions amounting to just over the "round to zero" amount of profit. It's really not that much of a headache as long as you have access to a printer. One form, check a box, scribble "TO THE IRS" on an envelope and jam it and your 1099 in and call it a day. Not a soul is going to bother checking the details anyway, since they already have the contents of your 1099.

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