Buzz
If you’re trying to find TurboTax’s free filing choice, you may have heard it’s not always easy to find.
This is the link you need: https://freefile.intuit.com/.
Why is this such a big deal? As ProPublica has extensively reported, TurboTax Free File is hard to locate—and this was a strategy they deliberately employed.
This week, we uncovered how TurboTax usesmisleading design
and deceptive advertising tactics to trick
low-income Americans
into paying for tax filing, even though they qualify for a free service.
Here’s a new twist: It turns out Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, is intentionally concealing the genuinely free version —TurboTax Free File
— from Google Search.
Intuit achieved this by embedding code on its website that instructs Google and other search engines to exclude TurboTax Free File from search results.
Although TurboTax removed this code after ProPublica exposed the issue, it’s still important to understand the distinction between the main TurboTax site and the TurboTax free file site. Why? Because while the main TurboTax site does advertise the free tax filing option, its navigation is intentionally designed to nudge you toward paying TurboTax to file your taxes.
To quote ProPublica once more:
We began by creating a profile for a TaskRabbit house cleaner who earned $29,000. We input a lot of personal information. TurboTax then asked us to navigate through over a dozen questions and prompts regarding our financial situation.
After all that, we were hit with the disappointing news: TurboTax informed us that it wouldn’t be free after all. It turned out the house cleaner didn’t qualify due to being an independent contractor. The cost? $119.99.
When ProPublica created the same independent contractor profile at TurboTax.Intuit.com/TaxFreedom, they were able to file the taxes for free.
If you're looking to file your taxes for free, make sure you know which URL offers that option. And if you ended up paying to file with TurboTax when you should've qualified for free, contact them and ask for a refund.
