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FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

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Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#91

Post by ghaff »

cj wrote: post #83
ghaff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're standard deduction and just have a few simple sources of income, filing is easily free. Should it be electronic and pre-filled? Yes. But this idea that you need an accountant or tax prep software if you have a W-2 and a 1099 just isn't true. The forms are free.

Half of the allure of turbo tax is figuring out if the standard deduction is more or less favorable than itemized. Maybe the IRS should start by building a tool that points you in the right direction before it tries to build a TurboTax clone.

I assume that information exists. It's mostly just totaling up some numbers. I know these days, for me, standard deduction works unless I have some outlier charitable/investment thing going on which I'm going to talk to my accountant about anyway. I assume there are other alternate energy credits and the like but not sure how they work and again aren't in play for most people in a given year.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#92

Post by pcurve »

foolswisdom wrote: post #50
rootusrootus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From comments in threads like this I think most people would be shocked that Intuit makes the largest segment of their income from business customers, not individual consumers.

Is this true for turbotax specifically, or merely for intuit as a whole (which includes things like quickbooks)?

The “business customer” is a slight misnomer because Intuits definition of this segment includes “Small Business and Self Employed”. Quickbooks accounts for thr largest share

For consumer segment TurboTax still drives 30% of their entire revenue.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#93

Post by ethbr1 »

wharvle wrote: post #76
cityofdelusion wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.

Anecdotally, it seems like working with fractions is where a lot of people fall off the math-train and never get back on. … yes, that early.

Fractions and negative numbers.

And, to be fair, they're the first math concepts that aren't intuitive.

Which IMHO leads to some people not studying, then feeling lost, then rationalizing their lack of effort as "I'm bad at math" or "Math is hard."

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#94

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

quantified wrote: post #11
MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free government-provided tax calculators and online filing are an existential threat to Intuit. I think that the business should not exist (or should be scaled down to a fraction of its size, as an accountant's tool), but can you blame them for trying to block the deathblow?

Sure. How much don't you blame the rat whose claws are embedded in your hand as you try to throw it in the river?

As a New Yorker, I wouldn't dare try, but I see your point.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#95

Post by ghaff »

wharvle wrote: post #76
cityofdelusion wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.

Anecdotally, it seems like working with fractions is where a lot of people fall off the math-train and never get back on. … yes, that early.

It actually doesn't shock me that many people would be confused, especially if they didn't work with fractional quantities--e.g. for cooking--on a regular basis. Maybe it's a myth but it wouldn't surprise me if it weren't. And even if they've sort of internalized 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 without necessarily fully getting fractions--1/3 is something people encounter a lot less day to day.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#96

Post by s1mon »

jjulius wrote: post #12
pcurve wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would be shocked to learn how big intuit is in terms of market cap. Bigger than Verizon wellsfargo ibm nike

For those unaware, Intuit owns... TurboTax Mint QuickBooks Credit Karma MailChimp

They do own Mint, but they are killing it and trying to get customers to switch to Credit Karma. Intuit bought Mint but never really put much development effort into it beyond the bare minimum. Like too many financial tracking things which are "free", the user was the product on Mint that its advertisers wanted. I switched to Monarch which is paid and has some people from the original Mint team behind it.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#97

Post by tasty_freeze »

apengwin wrote: post #60
ryukoposting wrote: post #46

If the IRS had the budget to run those ridiculous "free free free" ads from a couple years ago, TurboTax would cease to exist.

Increasing the IRS budget is an unequivocal good!

50% of the country believes tax is theft, and they also imagine if there were no taxes and the IRS abolished we'd somehow still continue to support an army, have a federal court system, a patent office, etc, etc, and that their state will continue to get federal subsidies.

That was the entire point of Obama's speech that republican news sources and libertarians eviscerated him for: "You didn't build that". He wasn't saying that you didn't build your business; he was stating you didn't build all the infrastructure that allowed you to build and run your business, and that is why taxes are not theft.

There is a legitimate argument over how much taxes and what is should be spent on, but those nuanced discussions are entirely replaced by BS.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#98

Post by ants_everywhere »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #54
sharps1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to look this up as I didn’t grow up in the States. It was A&W. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr... Crazy.

This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.

It's not that they're rare, it's that it legitimately is an easy error to make even if you understand it to be an error. Even people who work with equations every day will occasionally make careless mistakes like this. That's why mathematicians joke about how it's important to make an even number of sign errors.

To not make this mistake, you have to be able to call to mind that the map x -> 1/x reverses the inequality sign. That's a fairly abstract thing to remember especially if you haven't taken math for years. Yes you could draw it or write down the equation, or convert to decimal... But it's enough of a cognitive barrier that it doesn't surprise me that it would impact the behavior even of people who would answer correctly on a test.

Where it does get easy is if you work with the same set of fractions every day. For example, if you work in construction in the US you can probably quickly order the fractions commonly used for measurement, e.g. 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 3/4 etc. But 1/3 isn't one of these. Now that I think about it, they probably should have just chosen a fraction that you can find on a tape measure, like 3/8.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#99

Post by ghaff »

dehrmann wrote: post #72
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #13

Finally, something is being done. Paying taxes should be free for most people. Especially if you only have to deal with the standard deductions.

A 1040EZ covers that case and filing it is the cost of the stamp and envelope.

There is no 1040EZ as I understand it though there is the base-level 1040.

Re: FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

#100

Post by technothrasher »

dehrmann wrote: post #72
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #13

Finally, something is being done. Paying taxes should be free for most people. Especially if you only have to deal with the standard deductions.

A 1040EZ covers that case and filing it is the cost of the stamp and envelope.

1040EZ hasn't been a thing since 2017. But if you have a simple tax situation, the regular 1040 isn't all that hard to fill out.
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