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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

#261

Post by chad_strategic »

mulmen wrote: post #117
lmm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, apparently they've been putting out deceptive advertising.

The claim is that Intuit is a “criminal lobbying organization” so what lobbying laws were broken? Or was lobbying meant to be a verb instead of an adjective?

You are absolute correct, no laws have been broken. (yet)

There are also a lot of Senators and Representatives that have a larger re-election campaign fund now as well. But that's not illegal either. There are probably elected officials on the IRS committee. They also might own shares of INTU... Even that is not criminal.

Verbs or adjective, your grammar doesn't matter. All you have to do is follow the money.

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

#262

Post by tiltowait »

Zambyte wrote: post #235

While they're at it, they should go after services that include "free benefits" as a part of the service. The word "free" occurs 24 times in this list of what you get access to by paying $150 a year: https://web.archive.org/web/20240123132728/https://www.amazo...

This has always driven me nuts. At an old job, I got my boss to stop doing it, which felt like a nice victory.

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

#263

Post by mulmen »

chad_strategic wrote: post #261
mulmen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim is that Intuit is a “criminal lobbying organization” so what lobbying laws were broken? Or was lobbying meant to be a verb instead of an adjective?

You are absolute correct, no laws have been broken. (yet) There are also a lot of Senators and Representatives that have a larger re-election campaign fund now as well. But that's not illegal either. There are probably elected officials on the IRS committee. They also might own shares of INTU... Even that is not criminal. Verbs or adjective, your grammar doesn't matter. All you have to do is follow the money.

> You are absolute correct, no laws have been broken

Ok so why did you say Intuit broke lobbying laws?

> (yet)

When does Intuit plan on breaking lobbying laws? Which laws? And how do you know this?

> There are also a lot of Senators and Representatives

Which ones? How many?

> that have a larger re-election campaign fund now as well.

Who contributed? How much did they contribute? Was it illegal?

> There are probably elected officials on the IRS committee.

Do you mean the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation? Because by definition yes, only members of congress would be on a congressional committee. But the Joint Committee on Taxation isn’t the IRS, whose employees are not elected, because it’s a government agency, not part of congress.

> They also might own shares of INTU... Even that is not criminal.

Right but acting on inside information would be illegal.

> Verbs or adjective, your grammar doesn't matter.

In this case your grammar matters a lot. If Intuit broke lobbying laws that would be a big deal.

> All you have to do is follow the money.

I don’t have to do anything. You made the claim. The burden of proof is on you. If congress is really in Intuit’s pocket then that should be easy to demonstrate. Otherwise you are needlessly undermining faith in our institutions with tired apathetic cliches.

“Follow the money” is lame because profit alone is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Without that you are just perpetuating toxic rhetoric.

I’m no fan of Intuit but so far your comments have contributed nothing but cliche unfounded anti-government negativity.

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

#265

Post by keepamovin »

bobro wrote: post #109
keepamovin wrote: post #39

Finally! This is only 30 years too late. Also, let’s hope the IRS’ current beta of self filing app is successful.

What was happening 30 years ago? I would have guessed the online filing stuff and advertising based on "free" was much more recent?

Unfortunately, Turbo Tax has been around for a long time doing this kind of "scam". It predates any particular channels they sent this scam on, tho. Hahah! :)

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

#266

Post by ants_everywhere »

JadeNB wrote: post #101
ants_everywhere wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inequalit…

> 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... You absolutely don't have to remember that x |-> 1/x is order reversing, and, for most people, shouldn't—you immediately give two or three…

Yes, but I was also speaking generally about fractions since that was the context of the comment I was responding to.

For example, consider: 1/1123 You can't really draw that pie chart quickly. You could write the equation down and multiply both sides though.

For 1/3 vs 1/4 yes you could draw it quickly. Or you could fill a glass 1/3 full of water and one 1/4 and compare them. But that's a pretty special case for small enough denominators.

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

#267

Post by chad_strategic »

mulmen wrote: post #263
chad_strategic wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolute correct, no laws have been broken. (yet) There are also a lot of Senators and Representatives that have a larger re-election campaign fund now as well. But that's not illegal either. There are probably elected officials on the IRS committee. They also might own shares of INTU... Even that is not criminal. Verbs or adjective, your grammar doesn't matter. All you have to do is follow the money.

> You are absolute correct, no laws have been broken Ok so why did you say Intuit broke lobbying laws? > (yet) When does Intuit plan on breaking lobbying laws? Which laws? And how do you know this? > There are also a lot of Senators and Representatives Which ones? How many? > that have a larger re-election campaign fund now as well. Who contributed? How much did they contribute? Was it illegal? > There are probably e…

    Your comments suggest you have significantly more time to spare than I do. (However, I understand this is just my interpretation.)

    I'm entitled to my opinion on INTU and the government, regardless of whether it's factual or not. You're interpreting my views as anti-government negativity, which I don't agree with. Additionally, I wasn't aware that writing a research paper with proper citations was part of the conversation. To conclude, it seems your primary interest lies in debate.
> They also might own shares of INTU... Even that is not criminal.

Right but acting on inside information would be illegal.

You're 100% incorrect on that last point. Although not a formal legal document this article makes it pretty clear Senators and Representatives have a loophole in regards to trading on stocks. https://blogs.luc.edu/compliance/?p=4459

I will no longer respond to this thread as it's now reached the point of no return. In the meantime have a great day!

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

#268

Post by IIsi50MHz »

KMag wrote: post #211
Dalewyn wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speak, and thus think, in both English and Japanese. English says "1/4", or "1 over 4", or "1 quarter". Japanese says "4 bun no 1", or the practical equivalent of saying "4 under 1" in English. I consequently routinely say the numbers in reverse, confounding both myself and anyone around me before I realize my brain engaged in furious tentacle sex with the numbers.

> I speak, and thus think, in both English and Japanese. The vast majority of processing is happening outside language-related areas of the brain. There's certainly leaky interfaces between areas of the brain, but if you literally thought in a language, and that distinction persisted throughout the brain, that would seem to imply that speaking 3 languages would require 3x the number of connections in the brain. The s…

I think this is partially correct. Inner monologue is not an illusion, and choosing a wrong linguistic construct for your audience (sometimes from another language) through temporarily forgetting to context switch does happen. However, thinking something without ever having done so in words does seem to strongly correlate with your assertion.

Tangentially, I realised in high school that I was doing almost all math operations as word transformations. I reasoned this was why even familiar procedures for which I confidently & consistently got correct results were taking substantially longer than everybody else. I was translating everything twice.

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