Originally published at: Judge orders Intuit to stop lying about TurboTax being "free" | Boing Boing
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About time they got in trouble for this. You can do your taxes for free with their services with the huge caveat that you’ve got to have the most basic of basic returns. EG: Only W2 wages with no other complications. The idea that everyone can be doing them for free is complete bullshit.
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… And you decline the multiple upsell prompts it throws at you throughout the entire process.
Considering they’ve been doing a huge amount of lobbying to keep the tax return system the way it currently is? yeah. there needs to be a steep fine for their deceptive practices.
And while I was using TT for previous years returns, I think I’m going to try something else on principle.
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… It’s free speech
just expressing ourselves
to legislators
with money 
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Every year I feel dirty as I log into TurboTax, but I also know that 90% of the other options are either still owned by Intuit or are owned by H&R block, who are just as bad. I’d love to find a good alternative that doesn’t turn out to be just a while label of one of the big dishonest tax filing firms.
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The alternatives sell your info to advertisers
C’mon IRS, we need a direct option now (is it ready yet?)
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What are the odds of success for a large software project within a government entity? Most are over-budget, and they’re years (or even decades) late, and many are scrapped after a huge investment of your money.
And if the agency contracts it out, there are still often poor outcomes. Oracle vs. Oregon: Lawsuit Outcome & What It Means
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I don’t follow. I shouldn’t look forward to a government-provided tax prep method? They already know my income (reported by my employer), and could pre-fill-out the existing forms with this info. This is successfully done in many countries. 
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Happens here in Australia. Payroll is sending my tax payments to the Gubmint already so easy for the tax office to keep a running tab and pre fill my return.
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That’s great for you, but not for the millions of Americans who make at least some of their income from sources which are not required to report it to the government, not to mention business expenses which the government has no way of knowing.
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A government provided free tax-prep would be great for all Americans. Except those who work and lobby for a for-profit tax prep firm perhaps? Or the advertisers who buy our info from these companies… but I still think it’s for the greater good. Do you actually think it would hurt those who are paid in cash to have the option of genuinely free tax prep methods instead of the fake-free discussed in this thread?
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The internet?
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The post office? To be fair, until the internet age, it had no “code” involved… But it’s an excellent example of a government program that’s largely been incredibly beneficial to the public…
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Zip code! 
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That came about in… what, the 60s? Actually, we have a copy of the zip code from the early days in our stack of paperbacks (and by stack, I mean, we just built a whole new set of shelves for them).
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Ah - some beach reading.
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The IRS already has this software, I’ve gotten letters from the IRS telling me I missed taking a credit that they had information telling them I should have taken, and they sent me a second check for the difference.
They basically already fill out “what if returns” for us based on the massive amounts of information already reported to them.
I don’t like the idea that almost every aspect of my financial life is being tracked by the IRS, but if it is, I would like to also be getting the benefits of it.
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It’s a government entity… the same government that issued you a social security number and that you’re paying taxes to, so that we can have shared social resources. They are at least accountable to the public, unlike intiuit.
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I’m not saying a government-provided tax-prep service would be bad for anyone. Not only would it be a great alternative to the commercial options, but it should be a requirement for the government to offer it. I’m saying that many Americans would still have to provide much of the missing info, so it wouldn’t be as simple as logging in and clicking one button to submit their return.
… in order for private online filing systems to exist, there has to be a government online filing system for the private ones to talk to 
We’re just not allowed to talk to it ourselves
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