FTC Accuses TurboTax Owner of False Advertising

The Federal Trade Commission has asked a court to stop Intuit — maker of TurboTax tax prep software — from what it says is falsely advertising free tax services.

As Reuters reported Tuesday (March 29), the FTC filed the complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, arguing that ads for TurboTax repeatedly claim the service is free.

Read more: Intuit’s TurboTax Still Being Probed by FTC Despite Limited Power

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

Intuit issued a statement calling the FTC’s claims inaccurate and saying the company would defend itself in court.

“The FTC’s arguments are simply not credible,” said Kerry McLean, executive vice president and general counsel of Intuit. “Far from steering taxpayers away from free tax preparation offerings, our free advertising campaigns have led to more Americans filing their taxes for free than ever before and have been central to raising awareness of free tax prep.”

The company says TurboTax has helped nearly 100 million people file their taxes for free, with its most recent ad campaign driving 60% growth, from 11 million free filers in 2018 prior to the campaign’s launch to 17 million last year.

“In fact, Intuit has always supported consumers filing for free as a founding member of the IRS Free File program and in our other practices,” McLean added. “The FTC’s complaint fails to acknowledge the reality that Intuit was, at all times, in compliance with the IRS requirements.”

See also: FTC Probes Intuit Over Alleged Deceptive TurboTax Marketing

The complaint is part of an ongoing battle between Intuit and the FTC, which launched an investigation into TurboTax in 2019.

That investigation was prompted by a series of stories by ProPublica, which claimed TurboTax routed some users to a paid version of the software rather than its free version — which was part of the IRS’ Free File program — and allegedly also prevented the government’s Free File site from appearing in Google searches.