Turbo Tax America's number one free tax Filing software scammed its customers Out of billions of dollars from a Company claiming to offer a free product That is quite impressive after years of Scamming customers into unneeded fees And add-ons they've finally been caught And forced to offer refunds to the Millions of Americans who they scammed Now to fully understand how Turbo Tax Got away with this scam for so long we Have to go all the way back to the year 1999. that's the year that Turbo Tax First offered its online tax filing Service this program allowed individuals To skip going to an accountant and send Their tax filing directly to the IRS and Get an acknowledgment of its Acceptance In just 24 hours before that the process Had to be done with snail mail and you Could end up waiting weeks to find out If your return was accepted or if you Need to refile TurboTax online service Was a massive Improvement and a whopping 4.2 million copies of the 1999 version Of TurboTax was sold that year making The parent company Intuit a boatload of Money now this Cash Cow of a product was Nearly destroyed a few years later when Everyone's favorite government agency The IRS announced plans to create a free Online tax filing tool directly on their Website for all Americans to use Intuit As well as H R Block and other Tax
Services lobbied against this plan as They knew it would decrease their Profits if not bankrupt them if it Happened after spending hundreds of Millions of bribes I mean donations to Various lobbyist groups and Senators the IRS and these tax companies came to a Compromise Turbo Tax and other Tax Services would be required to offer a Free filing service for Americans who Made less than sixty six thousand Dollars a year and in exchange for these Companies offering those Services the IRS agreed to not create their own free Tax filing software while TurboTax and Other companies had to offer this free Service they had no intention of making It easy for the majority of Americans to Use the free version and instead made it The top priority to find on all of its Users directly to their paid service Despite year after year spending Millions on TV ads promoting that their Service was free free That's right TurboTax free is free free Free free free free TurboTax has a few different Services They offer but the main one they push is Known as Turbo Tax Free this service Claims that simple tax returns are free However the deceptive wording means that The majority of people who use the Service end up paying some amount of Fees ranging from around fifty dollars
All the way up to 300 per filing the Fine print states that a simple tax Return would include a W-2 only a W-2 is The basic form you receive from an Employer if you had a traditional job However if you have any additional tax Documents Turbo Tax then classifies your Return as no longer being simple and Then they start reaming you with fees Most Americans have some form of Alternative income that makes the return No longer simple and turbo taxes terms Of service anything from student loan Payments the sale of stocks child Support payments or gig economy work Would disqualify you from their free Service and you would be forced to pay To file as someone who has used TurboTax My entire adult life I have had to pay To file with them since 2015 as I've had Many different income sources including Payments from Google the parent company Of YouTube which sends me a 1099 form Every year TurboTax allows me and others To sign up for their free plan and then Hours into filing or tax return right Before the end they let you know that You have to pay a fee to file since your Return is not considered simple what Makes the company even more nefarious is That Turbo Tax actually did allow most Americans to file for free even if your Taxes were complicated under their Program known as Turbo Tax free file
What truly was deceptive was that the Free file program was hidden from the Public to make it nearly impossible to Find if you tried Googling the page it Wouldn't come up as Turbo Tax had Included a robot.txt file on the page Which prevented Google from indexing the Page and showing up when searched for Now all of this was eventually Discovered in 2019 by the organization Known as propublica which released a Scathing report on the dark dealings of Turbo Tax and their continued effort to Make sure the U.S tax code remains as Complicated as possible so most Americans need to pay for their services When the tax system in most other Countries is much simpler next time you Get a headache filing your taxes Remember to thank TurboTax and other Tax Services who make sure it stays Complicated in response to Pro publica's Report the CEO of Intuit released a Statement making it clear they weren't Scamming anyone just trying to help Americans find the right product for Their complicated tax filing needs he Went on to say there was nothing Shady About hiding their actual free program Webpage as this was a common practice Many websites used and he stated turbo Taxes services are far or better than a New potential free filing form that the IRS was planning on releasing this did
Not go over well and thousands of Unhappy customers began demanding Refunds from TurboTax and issuing Charred backs on credit cards as well Initially Turbo Tax refunded most of the Claims but as more came in Turbo Tax Changed their tune and eventually Stopped issuing refunds needless to say This upset a lot of people which Eventually led to the FTC suing into it And forcing the company to pay back 141 Million to customers they scammed in 2022. well this is obviously a step in The right direction it's a small amount They have to give back considering the Billions the company has made from this Scam over the years after the report Broke exposing this company Turbo Tax Tried to strong-arm the government into Renewing their deal that would prohibit The IRS from creating their own free Filing service but due to public outrage The bill allowing this did not pass the Senate in 2019. as of 2023 turbo taxes Would draw on its services from the IRS Free filing program and no longer offers Most of their free programs they still Advertise their main product as free but Like before most people end up having to Pay some fees to use it once they Actually sign up by leaving the free File program Turbo Tax can now offer This deceptive service without threat of Future lawsuits as they are no longer in
The program requiring them to offer free Services it's unfortunate Turbo Tax and Other tax companies have been able to Scam Americans for so long with their Deceptive products hopefully going Forward tax laws will be changed to Allow for far easier online filings in Most cases the IRS already has all of Your information before you file knowing Exactly what you owe them and it's just A logistical nightmare you have to go Through to provide your return to them But when these companies continue to Donate to the government to make sure That doesn't change I don't see this Changing anytime soon