The software is designed to guide users through their tax returns step-by-step.
TurboTax is available for both federal and state income tax returns. There are a number of different versions, including TurboTax Deluxe, TurboTax Premier, etc. Intuit Corporation, which owns Intuit, is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Intuit Consumer Tax Group is based in San Diego, California. Intuit is under investigation by multiple state attorneys general, as well as New York's Department of Financial Services. TurboTax has tricked military service members to pay to use the filing software by creating and promoting a "military discount" and by making the free version hard to find when many service members are in fact eligible to use the software for free. As part of an agreement with the IRS Free File program, TurboTax allows individuals making less than $39,000 a year to use a free version of TurboTax a 2019 ProPublica investigation revealed that TurboTax deliberately makes this version hard to find, even through search engines, and that it deceptively steers individuals who search for the free version to TurboTax versions that cost money to use. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has lobbied extensively against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) creating its own online system of tax filing like those that exist in most other wealthy countries. The company has been subject of controversy over its political influence and deceptive business practices. Chipman of Chipsoft in 1984 and was sold to Intuit in 1993. TurboTax is a market leader in its product segment, competing with H&R Block Tax Software and TaxAct. TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns, produced by Intuit. In the meanwhile, Intuit is currently facing investigations over its practices leading people to pay for what is legally a free service.Intuit Consumer Tax Group headquarters in San Diego (where TurboTax is developed) But the IRS isn’t addressing those sorts of tricks with its new restrictions, so it’s quite possible Intuit and other tax prep companies will have plenty of other ways to make their money. And TurboTax had also deliberately targeted students and low-income users with the paid version of their service, moving necessary forms like student loan interest deduction into the “Deluxe” tier. Some of the links in the free version of TurboTax would link to the paid version, tricking you into paying more than you should. You couldn’t access the free version from at all.
When ProPublica published their groundbreaking report in April, they found that TurboTax’s main page didn’t even link to the page that lets you file for free. The new addendum also requires all these tax preparation companies to give their truly free options a specific badge: “IRS Free File program delivered by ,” so you can tell them apart from other versions which might sneakily require you to pay. In return, the IRS agreed to not make its own free filing software, something that the tax preparation companies thought could be a big competitor to their business. The Free File program initially said that filing software had to allow lower- and middle-income taxpayers to be able to file for free. Tax industry lobbying was how the IRS’s Free File was initially created, with the IRS agreeing to leave it up to those companies. But in the United States, Intuit has spent millions each year lobbying against these simpler systems which would eliminate the need for their services. The government uses data it already has on your income to fill out your taxes. In several other countries, filing your taxes is a lot easier. They’ve also eliminated a restriction against the IRS making its own filing software.
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On Monday, the IRS released an addendum to its Free File program - the agreement with tax preparation companies intended to keep tax filing free - that now prohibits these companies from hiding the pages that allow you to file for free from Google and other search engines. Now, ProPublica reports that the IRS is taking steps against this. This made it harder for users to find the free versions online, and many people ended up paying to file their taxes when they really didn’t have to. They, along with H&R Block, went so far as to keep the free versions from showing up in search engine results. Earlier this year, ProPublica published a report showing how Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, was misleading users into paying to file their taxes - something that’s supposed to be free in the first place for many.
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