U.S. FTC Asks Court to Stop Intuit from Deceptively Advertising Free Tax Filing

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U.S. FTC Asks Court to Stop Intuit from Deceptively Advertising Free Tax Filing
29 Mar 2022
6 min read

News Synopsis

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission asked the court to issue an order to prevent Intuit, the owner of the TurboTax tax preparation software, from promoting misleading free tax returns when many have to pay. 

The complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California says that the FTC enforces antitrust laws against deceptive advertising. It also said that an internal administrative proceeding on the matter has also started. The complaint also includes that advertisements for TurboTax repeatedly stress that the service is free of cost.

The complaint included, “In truth, TurboTax is only free for some users, according to the tax formats they need. For many others, Intuit tells them that after having invested time and effort gathering and inputting into TurboTax their sensitive personal and financial information to prepare their tax returns, they cannot continue for free and will need to upgrade to a paid TurboTax service.”

Intuit said it would actively fight the FTC complaint and said it was trying to increase the number of people using the free service.

Intuit Executive Vice President Kerry McLean said in a statement, “While said it is disappointing that the FTC chose to file this lawsuit, we look forward to presenting the facts in court and are confident in the merits of our position.”