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The
maker of the popular TurboTax tax filing software said it would
immediately appeal the decision. "We believe that when the
matter ultimately returns to a neutral body we will prevail," it
said, adding: "there is no monetary penalty in the FTC’s order,
and Intuit expects no significant impact to its business.
Intuit shares closed up 1.4% at $630.61 on Monday.
The commission's final order, after an administrative ruling in
September, said Intuit cannot advertise or market any service as
free unless it was free to all consumers, or unless it disclosed
properly the percentage of taxpayers that qualify for the free
product.
The FTC said the character of prior violations was "egregious.
For at least six years, Intuit blanketed the country with
deceptive ads to taxpayers across multiple media channels."
The agency added: "Intuit continued running the ads, knowing
that they led consumers to believe that they could file their
returns for free, even though approximately two-thirds of
taxpayers are not eligible."
Intuit said on Monday that it had always been "clear, fair, and
transparent with its customers and is committed to free tax
preparation."
Intuit in May 2022 agreed to pay $141 million in restitution to
settle claims by all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., that
it tricked millions of customers into buying online TurboTax
products that the company deceptively advertised as "free."
The settlement resolved claims that Intuit steered at least 4.4
million customers, many with low incomes, into buying its tax
preparation products despite the ineligibility of those
customers for free electronic filing through the Internal
Revenue Service.
The settlement with the states called for Intuit to suspend ads
containing slogans such as "TurboTax Free is free. Free free
free free."
Under terms of the settlement with states, Intuit did not admit
wrongdoing.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Paul Grant in Washington;
Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Matthew Lewis)
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