[HN Gopher] TurboTax to pay $141M in agreement reached by all 50...
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TurboTax to pay $141M in agreement reached by all 50 states
Author : xdfg13345
Score : 186 points
Date : 2022-05-04 19:13 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ag.ny.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (ag.ny.gov)
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Nice. About half of the process of filing taxes with TurboTax is
| dodging all the dark patterns to try get you to pay...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| How about instead of fining them, we just create a free tax
| filing website at the IRS to spite them? $141MM is just the cost
| of doing business, and that's ridiculous.
| db65edfc7996 wrote:
| Even better is to have the IRS to automatically calculate your
| tax each year. Send a postcard with the results, if you
| disagree, you do the entire filing yourself. Planet Money[0]
| did a story about California's attempt years ago. Conservatives
| vetoed the legislation because they think taxes should be
| painful.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...
| moate wrote:
| Because the IRS tied their own hands when they agreed not to
| compete. You'd need to find political will to change that and
| "how you file your taxes" isn't a sexy issue that gets voters
| to give a fuck.
| rexpop wrote:
| > they agreed not to compete
|
| Apparently, as of 2019, this is no longer the case.[0]
|
| 0. https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-reforms-free-file-
| pro...
| goatcode wrote:
| The IRS went 3 months past promised deadline on their
| withholdings estimator site. I can't imagine the folly that'd
| be produced by them attempting tax software, as wrong as that
| sounds.
| pempem wrote:
| There is a continuous issue in our government where you can
| support a department and its efforts however its continuous
| underfunding or gutting has made the department essentially
| defunct.
|
| Then when the rest of our electorate looks at it they say
| "what is this shit dept? it doesn't do anything anyway, let's
| find a privatized solution".
|
| That was in fact the entire goal of gutting it. That and
| passing the cost onto you, the citizen in addition to the
| taxes paid for said defuct department that has a few well
| paid bureacrats sitting in there finding more ways for it to
| be shitty at its job.
|
| This is an openly stated conservative talking point and goal.
| I first noticed it happening in earnest under GW Bush with
| the EPA, dept of interior, post office, and more.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| Because they're ridiculously underfunded. Half of the
| conservative movement is based around trying to starve the
| IRS to death so that de facto taxes for wealthy people don't
| exist anymore.
| pueblito wrote:
| It's bipartisan
| user3939382 wrote:
| "This agreement should serve as a reminder to companies large and
| small that engaging in these deceptive marketing ploys is
| illegal." I think he meant profitable. From Intuit's perspective
| this is like a court order to dump out the cup of coffee you
| bought.
|
| Forget the people who signed up from their ad, let's add up the
| money the country has collectively spent (wasted) on CPAs,
| TurboTax, H&R Block, etc due to the complex income tax code
| Intuit and friends perpetually lobby to maintain.
|
| Intuit is a parasite on our society. Their newest strategy is to
| force businesses using QuickBooks into software subscriptions
| because we all know the logical rules for double entry
| bookkeeping are constantly in flux /s
| [deleted]
| drummer wrote:
| azinman2 wrote:
| You cannot have a functional government without taxation.
| alar44 wrote:
| Cool, go live on an island and stopping using the
| infrastructure we all pay for or grow up and accept that we
| have shared infrastructure that needs to be maintained and
| paid for by everyone collectively.
| sneak wrote:
| Somehow we have the Internet without any mandatory
| collective payments.
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| >"Somehow"
|
| Be more specific. We have it due to government funded
| projects and subsidies that built the infrastructure that
| let's people actually use the internet. Then of course
| there's the tax-funded programs that created the internet
| in the first place.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| You do realize the types of organizations that originally
| created the internet, right?
|
| Hint: It wasn't private companies.
| tedajax wrote:
| The internet was literally started as a government
| research project paid for with taxes...
| sneak wrote:
| Yes. And then the modern internet we use today was built
| a different way.
| alimov wrote:
| No. It was built on* publicly funded infrastructure and
| subsidies paid for by our taxes.
| [deleted]
| rurp wrote:
| Who do you think enforces the rules and regulations
| governing ISPs, hardware manufacturers, and the property
| rights of networking equipment?
| bun_at_work wrote:
| For context, Intuit's market cap at end of day today: $126.68B.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| The right comparison is yearly income - $2.062B. From the
| 10K, TurboTax and Mint are 37% of revenue. Mint is probably
| negligible, so the income from TurboTax is $0.67B a year or
| 5x the fine.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Some cash flow measure is probably a better comparison (it
| will still only be days or a few weeks of those).
| goldcd wrote:
| Fortunately there's an easy way to work out if the punishment
| is sufficent - Fiduciary duty will cause the replacement of the
| CEO and board if they made the wrong decision in fucking the
| population over and assuming their vast profits wouldn't easily
| cover any fine.
| vjeux wrote:
| > In contrast, the IRS Free File products were free for 70
| percent of taxpayers.
|
| I wonder why the IRS "Free" version isn't actually free!
| [deleted]
| detcader wrote:
| $1.41 parking ticket
| cwal37 wrote:
| A lot of people here asking "Why is the fine so low, how does
| this happen!" I recommend reading "The Chickenshit Club: Why the
| Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"[0] which is
| obviously a bit broader than just fines, but does touch on the
| history and current state of things with respect to corporate
| malfeasance.
|
| One thing that I did not know (too young to be paying close
| enough attention at the time), but was interesting to me was the
| backlash from Arthur Andersen collapsing and the resulting loss
| of jobs as part of the whole Enron scandal. This was at least
| somewhat blamed on government overreach in going after Enron,
| even if that wasn't exactly the case, and helped to set the table
| for quite a slide in standards over time.
|
| [0]https://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/535799735/corporate-
| bungling-...
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write
| grievousness which they have prescribed;
|
| To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the
| right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their
| prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!"
|
| - Isaiah 10:1-2
|
| Seems to me we got an awful lot of that going on these days.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The problem is that politicians who want to legislate based
| on their religious values are extremely picky about which
| tennets of their faith they want to codify into law.
|
| Luke 3:10-11
|
| _"'What should we do then?' the crowd asked. John answered,
| 'Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has
| none, and anyone who has food should do the same.'"_
|
| There's a distinct absence of many people willing to either
| legislate that into law or practice it themselves. Not that
| I'm advocating for codifying such things into law: this is
| merely an observation, and an expression of my frustration
| with those who want to impose their values on others, but
| only when it's convenient for them.
| alx__ wrote:
| So the fed doesn't want to be to harsh and risk destabilizing
| the economy? Then by doing this, encourages companies to engage
| in shitty behavior. Which could then destabilize the economy
| when they implode.
|
| Capitalism(tm): Shut up, it tastes good!?
|
| [Yeah I'm being reductive, just annoyed to watch all this and
| feel helpless that nothing changes]
| treeman79 wrote:
| Nothing capitalistic about this. Super complex taxes are a
| problem created by the Government.
|
| Get rid of the income tax and switch to a simple sales tax
| and most returns would be eliminated
| vkou wrote:
| Most people don't have super complex taxes, there's no
| reason the IRS can't just send them an itemized bill every
| April, that you can either attest to the correctness of,
| and pay, or contest by doing a full filing.
|
| Progressive income taxes aren't what make tax filing a
| pain.
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| It should be quarterly and a bill, not a refund.
| andrepd wrote:
| On the contrary, regulatory capture and similar issues are
| a necessary consequence of capitalist accumulation.
| nnvvhh wrote:
| I think some countries use a different tradeoff than the US
| for their income tax. Instead of spending a ton of
| government and taxpayer time and effort to accurately
| assess what each taxpayer owes, the government simply
| generates an estimate based on what it knows about each
| taxpayer and uses that. They accept the reduced accuracy
| but it is offset by the reduced effort in determining
| everyone's bills. That is to say, you don't need to move
| away from an income tax to address the problem.
| moate wrote:
| Right, but when large "needed" industries fail and
| destabilize things, they just get bailed out. In the end, it
| all works out for the investor class.
| namdnay wrote:
| The investor class is anyone with a 401k
| vkou wrote:
| Most people with a 401k derive a small portion of their
| income from it.
|
| If >60% of your income comes from your day job, you're
| not part of the investor class, you're part of the
| working class.
| leetrout wrote:
| I swear the broad adoption of 401k programs is one of the
| biggest crimes against the working class.
|
| So much risk for the owner of the money and tons of
| upside for all the supply chain servicing them.
| sfblah wrote:
| The idea of people investing their retirement seems like
| a good one, but yes I'm afraid it winds up just being a
| scam. The worst part appears to be that the monetary
| authorities now can't allow recessions, because that
| would destroy people's ability to retire. So, you get a
| bloated economy where creative destruction isn't allowed
| to occur.
| mushbino wrote:
| I believe in China in these cases the government would take
| over the company and charge the executives. Maybe we should
| take the same approach.
| nickff wrote:
| More often than not, the investors take some losses (foreign
| investors are usually wiped out), and the company is
| reconstituted with the same executives holding similar
| positions (and equity in the new company). This is done
| because large companies are usually politically well-
| connected, and the various levels of government in China
| prefer stability over rule-of-law.
| namdnay wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. All depends on how many friends you have in
| the party, and whether the current leading faction sees you
| as a threat or not
| pacetherace wrote:
| Lack of punishments in form of incarceration being the norm is
| what makes this happen repeatedly.
| vasco wrote:
| A weirder and harder to find recommendation: "Essays in the
| economics of crime and punishment". While quite old, gives a
| good overview of the thinking behind how governments establish
| systems of fines, jail time and how their thresholds are
| figured out to calculate restitution to society.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Find in a nearby library here:
| https://www.worldcat.org/title/essays-in-the-economics-of-
| cr...
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| How is this company getting away with 50cents per person for
| defrauding a whole nation?
| [deleted]
| uberwindung wrote:
| Many more companies got away with many other atrocities.
| Because in this country Corporate interests come before people
| interests. That's what capitalism does when unchecked.
| geodel wrote:
| And which are those great countries where this is not true.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Because in this country Corporate interests come before
| people interests.
|
| Moving this to a spectrum rather than binary discussion.
| I'd argue that Canada, and many members of the EU do put
| pressure on companies to be "polite" so to speak.
| geodel wrote:
| Sure, it is spectrum, still I note that things cost quite
| a bit more and people earn quite a bit less than US. So I
| am not sure even if free tax filing were there, Canadians
| have it better than US.
|
| For EU, when government put pressure on companies to be
| polite I need to learn that end result being beneficial
| to citizens or just politicians and bureaucracy.
| ezfe wrote:
| Because this isn't about that, this is about their marketing of
| their TurboTax Free edition
| munk-a wrote:
| They are fraudulently advertising their product to the whole
| nation - it still comes out to 50c/head.
| geodel wrote:
| Huh, whole media is chock full of fraudulent advertising
| including things that are not even marked as advertising.
|
| Now you can call it whataboutery but thankfully courts have
| to reasonably go with what they can prove and not like
| "whoa, you showed fraudulent ads, here is 128 billion
| dollar fine equal to your market cap today. Shutdown the
| company and pay by end of week."
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I mean, no one suggested bankrupt the company -- but as
| other's have pointed out it remains _profitable_ to be
| fraudulent. Like at least fine them >= 100% of the value
| they gained.
| moate wrote:
| Hello. I would like to suggest bankrupting the company.
| It's not "fair" or "just" but it would be in the common
| good. Plenty of precedent for that from governments that
| give a fuck about the citizens and not the corporations.
|
| I realize this isn't actually going to happen, but I'd
| vote for the measure that involved the state seizing
| Intuit and raiding their software for the benefit of the
| IRS.
|
| (FWIW, I'm not going to respond to comments on this
| debating the merits of this non-plan. I get it's an
| unpopular opinion, especially on a tech-funding backed
| news board, so I don't need people to tell me why this is
| a "bad" choice and how it will slippery slope into
| whatever socialist hellscape personally keeps people up
| at night. Just wanted it out there that there are
| absolutely people willing to tear the whole fucking thing
| down because it's so broken).
| tyrfing wrote:
| Could you link some of those precedents?
| the_only_law wrote:
| > I would like to suggest bankrupting the company. It's
| not "fair" or "just" but it would be in the common good.
|
| Interestingly, someone pointed out the same reason is why
| these companies get bailed out when they fail.
| geodel wrote:
| Ok, I surely not going to argue about minor technical
| details of plan or possible flaws in execution.
|
| One question to ponder is how companies like Intuit came
| into being in first place. Why is doing accounts, filing
| taxes have to be so detailed and complex that this
| service is needed by many? If IRS rules and government
| legislations are published in detail, months/years ahead
| of enforcement, should a reasonably intelligent person
| just follow along and file directly without any
| intermediaries.
|
| After all using third party service is not something
| mandated by law and not using it would result in fine.
| nearbuy wrote:
| I'm not sure it was profitable. The article suggests they
| duped 4.4 million Americans. They would likely still have
| made at least a little money off those people if their
| marketing was honest.
|
| There's reputational damage too. Hopefully more people
| will avoid TurboTax after this news story.
|
| I'm not sure the false advertising turned out to be a
| good business decision in the end.
| beambot wrote:
| All the best facets of capitalism at play: regulatory capture,
| decentralized costs & concentrated profits, and fees small enough
| to be a cost of business rather than long-term deterrent.
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| 141M would be like me having to pay 1000$ fine for robbing a
| federal bank where I stole $10 billion.
| s3p wrote:
| Wishing Intuit were fined out of existence, but a man can dream
| I guess.
| user- wrote:
| Im Canadian.
|
| I filed my taxes using WealthSimple Tax.
|
| It cost $0.
|
| It took <5 minutes.
|
| I really don't understand why people pay for TurboTax.
| goldcd wrote:
| I am not without complaints over my government (United Kingdom) -
| but they did manage to built an online tax system, without
| suddenly deciding that private companies would enhance the
| experience.
|
| By all means fine the bejeesus out of Intuit - but do not think
| for one moment the actual problem wasn't that they managed to
| lobby their way into that position.
|
| If anybody is interested, I quite like the UK government website
| - https://www.gov.uk/
|
| It has the appearance that it was knocked up in notepad, but
| after using it, I have a modicum of respect for how it makes
| government usable.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| > It has the appearance that it was knocked up in notepad, but
| after using it, I have a modicum of respect for how it makes
| government usable.
|
| I'd wager that the looks have a lot to do with accessibility.
| Government sites are interesting in that to fill their purpose
| they're on the far end of the spectrum of website and system
| accessibility--in that they must be usable for:
|
| 1. People who don't have typical eyesight--colorblind, blind,
| vision with poor focus, issues distinguishing text without a
| sufficient level of contrast
|
| 2. People who don't use keyboards or mice to navigate--this
| could include folks using screen readers, voice assistants, or
| more exotic interface devices (think paraplegics using eye-
| tracking software or tongue switches).
|
| 3. People who are not neurotlypical and may struggle to use the
| website--think dyslexia, anxiety (info-dense walls of text can
| trigger panic attacks), or individuals who have trouble using
| computers or the internet.
|
| There's likely a lot more there than I'm personally aware of,
| but making even a basic service available and usable to a
| constituency can take a huge amount of effort. The UK gov
| website guidelines[1] touch on this and I applaud any
| government or organization that takes these things seriously.
|
| 1. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-
| for-p...
| goldcd wrote:
| Oh I agree - it looks like it does for all of those reasons.
| Even for normal me, when using it, I find I like the design
| language. e.g. When sorting out my tax, it has sections that
| clearly explain "Does this apply to you" and if it does and
| you fill it in, then you get a summary on the "master-list"
| you eventually submit.
|
| Also the only site where clicking on the "more info" section
| actually clears up any query I had.
|
| I've no doubt there're endless interactions, a/b testing and
| all the rest that have enabled them to create something that
| looks so basic. It's just that's such an unfamiliar pattern
| to engage with. We all "tut-tut" over "dark design" - but
| there are very few commercial sites that want you to get in,
| do your task quickly/accurately - and then leave for a year.
| e.g. Google prides themselves on you finding what you're
| looking for quickly - but they want you to come back again.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| I feel this way about most utilities I deal with. TMobile
| and Comcast both have terrible UX for their websites. PG&E
| is a bit better, but only in that it's better organized.
|
| I'd love for more services to have simpler interfaces. I
| honestly feel the web in general is over-complicated for
| most day-to-day tasks. This may just me being grumpy about
| the volume of poorly implemented single page apps I run
| into.
| aidos wrote:
| Can't recall where I saw it in the past (maybe even on HN - I
| know a bunch of the digital team hang around here) but I read
| something about how it was also important to make it function
| well on low powered mobile devices with poor internet because
| a lot of people that need the service aren't as fortunate as
| many of us.
|
| Honestly, I love the work the Uk team has done on the digital
| services. I find them a real pleasure to use. Very clear,
| consistent and functional. There are a lot of corners they're
| yet to get to, but the areas that have been sorted out are
| great.
| barbell wrote:
| I hate to break it to you, but they did decide that private
| companies would enhance the experience, they call it "Making
| Tax Digital".
|
| Soon for VAT and Income Tax you will need to use "compatible
| software" from an approved vendor, you won't be allowed to just
| submit your details through the governments own website
| anymore. Great stuff.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-software-thats-compatible-w...
| aidos wrote:
| That seems pretty good, no? There won't be any faffing with
| vat and it'll be integrated right into Xero?
| goldcd wrote:
| That has depressed me.. The optimist hopes that this is just
| compliance with a well designed API.. the realist saw Intuit
| on that list..
| anticensor wrote:
| See sibling post from matbee.
| goldcd wrote:
| I did I'm trying not to imagine he's on a great
| contractor rate with HMRC and choosing which French villa
| to snap up with his next contract from Intuit..
|
| More seriously - and after my knee-jerk has died down, my
| government actually publishing APIs does seem "pretty-
| schweet"
| mattbee wrote:
| The API for MTD stuff is very open:
|
| https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-
| documentation/docs...
|
| And because of that there's tonnes of approved software,
| including loads of actually-free services:
|
| https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/making-tax-digital-software
|
| Including GNUCash, where you can register for your own
| developer key and file away for free -
| https://github.com/cybermaggedon/gnucash-uk-vat
|
| This seems like exactly the right way for a government to opt
| out of writing its own web front-ends.
| jl6 wrote:
| gov.uk is a breath of fresh air compared to the commercial
| swamp of the surface web. It's a great example of design-is-
| how-it-works elevated above design-is-how-it-looks.
| not2b wrote:
| They made $2 billion in profit in 2021, so this is about 7% of
| that.
| vmception wrote:
| Can we do the same to Dunn & Bradstreet DUNS number? This is free
| as well, required for business credit score creation and
| reporting, federal contracting, and oddly for posting an app on
| the Apple App Store.
|
| But they have an insane number of anti-patterns to get you to pay
| for it and other products in the way.
| priyanmuthu wrote:
| I guess TurboTax made much more money than 141M? A fine is fine
| only if it is higher than the profits.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Indeed, when the fine is less then the profit, then its a
| kickback.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| Not even that. Just consider how long it took for the
| government to make any kind of movement on the issue,
| regardless of whether it was some likely watered down
| toothless action or not. So, retroactively the cost was some
| fraction of $141M over the years they've gotten away with
| their practices and it is also safe to assume that they would
| likely just offset that cost over some period into the
| future, i.e., 10 years of past profit + 10 years until the
| mid point to the next government action, over $141M ... which
| they will make up by upping the price as they have clearly
| been doing on a regular basis.
|
| On that note. We should be telling everyone about
| freetaxusa.com (no affiliation other than having tried it). I
| can't recall the exact cost structure, but it's on the order
| of $25 to do federal and state returns with investment
| income, and file both electronically. That's in comparison to
| what I think is around $100 for the equivalent using
| TurboTax.
| idunno246 wrote:
| its also free under ~50k AGI, though it did keep trying to
| upsell me to the paid version, the free file program is
| pretty readily available from many providers. but they all
| do the type of thing that they just slapped intuit's wrists
| for and try to trick you into needing to pay when using
| free file, or trick you into your "free" taxes only being
| federal
| rsstack wrote:
| From Google: Intuit has over $3B cash on hand. Market cap is
| 1000x the fine.
| vijaybritto wrote:
| My only confusion in this ongoing saga is, how is there no open
| source free hosted solution for people to do this? Or are there
| any but they're not reliable/famous?
|
| I have worked at Intuit, Bangalore for a short time as a
| contractor and once during a weekly feature demo, a guy joked
| that "user shouldn't see the obvious way to cancel the payment".
| There was laughter around. It was a dark pattern but no one
| cared. They were boasting about being one of the best places to
| work all the time.
|
| But it was hell. They simply don't give contractors a place to
| sit and work. You're called 'Mobile'. So you get to sit only
| where the full time employees don't sit or when they are on
| leave. It was humiliating and i simply don't understand why they
| have that as a policy. The manager was talking as if he moved
| mountains for us a couple of contractors to sit. But it was
| actually a couple of desks where there was direct sun light and
| no full time employees would sit because it's so hot and you get
| sweaty in minutes. I left in a couple of months and didn't even
| say good bye.
| leeoniya wrote:
| this was shared recently
|
| https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I tried using it; it's _very_ limited. It might work for you
| if you have W2 income and nothing else.
| uncletaco wrote:
| There is: GNUcash, ledger, and beancount.
| geodel wrote:
| Well, State and fed tax can be filed free and all the forms are
| available online or even free printed copies in public
| libraries.
| ineptech wrote:
| > New York Will Receive Over $5.4 Million for More Than 176,000
| New Yorkers
|
| That's $30 each for users who are already onboarded and very
| likely to use this high-margin product again next year. As
| customer acquisition strategies go, "outright fraud" is looking
| pretty good!
| kelvin0 wrote:
| Phase 2: Get get rid of the Income Tax itself ...
| musicale wrote:
| Is the IRS under any obligation to provide e-filing systems
| access to companies like Intuit that knowingly flout the law?
|
| If not, they should revoke it.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I'd prefer the IRS provide a truly free website. Screw Intuit,
| they broke the agreement.
| Vladimof wrote:
| How about the IRS send us a filled out tax return instead...
| and we can amend it.
| mkaic wrote:
| For real. This is how the system ought to work. If they have
| the resources to come after you if you accidentally filled
| something out wrong, they have the resources to fill it out
| right for you in the first place. The tax system in the USA
| is nothing short of a farce.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| To be fair, the IRS does not "come after you" if you make a
| mistake. They send you a letter, with request for the
| additional amount due, and if you agree, you pay it. Done.
| Vladimof wrote:
| I think that the IRS is hoping that people make mistakes in
| their favor... I.E.: Anyone ever got a letter from the IRS
| saying that they paid too much?
| ars wrote:
| Happens all the time. I got one from a State once, and
| I'm still convinced I was right and they were wrong, I'm
| not exactly going to argue with them, when they're
| sending me money.
|
| However if you report more interest, or wages than they
| know about they will take your numbers as is - they
| assume you are reporting under the table income. They
| will however fix arithmetic errors, and give you credit
| for things you should have asked for (dependent
| deductions for example).
| ars wrote:
| Here's how I do my tax return: I go to the IRS website, I
| download my data (all the forms submitted about me). I enter
| them by hand into a tax program, it then generates a tax
| returns and sends it back.
|
| There's almost nothing in there that needs me as part of the
| process, except demographic info.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >Intuit will pay $141 million in restitution, of which roughly
| $2.5 million will be used for administrative fund costs.
|
| A total joke. It would be better to hold a $141,000,000 lottery
| instead of giving out $30/house.
| beej71 wrote:
| IT'S STILL ALIVE! FINE IT AGAIN! FINE IT AGAIN!
| naikrovek wrote:
| So, basically no fine at all. This is nothing to a company that
| size. Nothing.
| [deleted]
| gigatexal wrote:
| Pay 141M and change nothing hmm
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| $2.5M of the $141M is for "admin fees" tth_tth
| clintonc wrote:
| $2.5M is a remarkably low percentage. If this means that 98% of
| the fine actually goes back to consumers, that's better than
| I've ever heard of from a class action lawsuit.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| lol at 140 million going to consumers.
|
| That's going to be like $1 per person per year they used the
| service
| ezfe wrote:
| It's not everyone who used TurboTax, just people use use
| the Free Edition which is what this lawsuit is about.
| spiderice wrote:
| Not sure I understand.. if they used the Free Edition,
| shouldn't they not have paid anything? I'm guessing that
| is the crux of the issue, but I guess I always assumed
| Turbo Tax got you started on the Free Edition then tried
| to upsell you. Sounds like they charge you money while
| keeping you on the Free Edition?
| smachiz wrote:
| smh, couldn't even read a press release:
|
| >nder the agreement, Intuit will provide restitution to
| nearly 4.4 million consumers who started using TurboTax's
| Free Edition for tax years 2016 through 2018 and were told
| that they had to pay to file even though they were eligible
| to file for free using the IRS Free File program offered
| through TurboTax. Consumers are expected to receive a
| direct payment of approximately $30 for each year that they
| were deceived into paying for filing services. Impacted
| consumers will automatically receive notices and a check by
| mail.
|
| $30/year per person who shouldn't have paid TurboTax is not
| nothing.... especially for people who would have qualified
| for the free filing program. Getting $60 back is a pretty
| good day for them. That's a days work at minimum wage.
| s3p wrote:
| Per the article, it's $30 per person per year.
| paxys wrote:
| That's because this wasn't a class action suit, but litigated
| by the state AG.
| goldcd wrote:
| "Class action lawsuits" are a weirdly American thing as well.
|
| Bit like short-sellers.
|
| Ideally government/state would enforce fair play - but
| instead it's left to private enterprise (financiers and
| lawyers) to patrol, for the potentially ridiculous returns
| that can make for wrong-doing. Makes me think of old "Wanted
| Posters", just for "Wrongdoers" and the reward being
| "Ridiculous"
|
| Does also make me wonder how much blackmail goes on,
| unnoticed. There must be more than a few "reports" that got
| bought be a company for a large consultancy fee..
| smachiz wrote:
| 1.7% doesn't feel like a lot to administer giving away
| $141M....
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Can we please just solve the much bigger problem which is that
| ordinary people should not need to use any third party services
| to create, validate, and submit individual income tax returns.
| The IRS can and should be the provider of this software.
| andykellr wrote:
| Well Intuit has tried very hard to prevent that and so far has
| been successful.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
| tomrod wrote:
| There is a whole industry around improving digital services the
| US Government provides (and State governments as well).
|
| Check out 18F / USDS sometime.
| ParksNet wrote:
| Or just abandon Income Taxes (57% of US households don't pay
| any anyway) and embrace Land Value Taxes to fund State and
| Federal operations. Apply a credit for each child of the owner
| living in the dwelling to encourage house ownership.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I mean, Texas essentially runs that way (minus the credit)
| and I wouldn't exactly call it a utopia here.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I'm not sure I like the idea of land value taxes though I
| concede there is a better argument that government expenses
| correlate better to land owned than to income.
| justinator wrote:
| Good. They totally rigamarolled me at checkout.
| tynpeddler wrote:
| This is the important part of the article:
|
| > Consumers are expected to receive a direct payment of
| approximately $30 for each year that they were deceived into
| paying for filing services. Impacted consumers will automatically
| receive notices and a check by mail.
|
| It looks like TurboTax is being required to return the money they
| fraudulently obtained, but they're not even required to pay
| interest or any additional restitution or punitive damages. It's
| definitely disappointing and a minor miscarriage of justice.
|
| Edit: Two things I want to clarify from my original comment.
| First, I wasn't able to find pricing info from the years in
| question so I went from what I remembered as their lowest pricing
| tier which I think was $30. Second, I use the term "minor
| miscarriage of justice" as a comparison to the Sackler BS which
| was a gross (as in disgusting) miscarriage of justice.
| ineedasername wrote:
| But no punitive damages. If I personally deceived people to
| this extent then reimbursement would be the least hurtful
| penalty. I'd be looking at jail time. The least the FTC could
| do is levy treble damages.
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| It's better than a coupon for free tax preparation next year,
| which is sort of what I expected.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| True, I feel like coupons are a way that a lot of these go. I
| remember my $14 Ticketmaster coupon (or something I don't
| remember the exact amount) that had an expiration date on it.
|
| Some of the class action suits also require you to be the one
| to put in effort to receive your money, so the fact that
| TurboTax is just mailing everyone a check seems better than
| others. And "better" doesn't necessarily mean "good". Still
| not a fan of TurboTax or the US tax filing system.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Given the recent trend of incompetence leading into
| borderline scams I don't blame you.
| burkaman wrote:
| Also important, from Intuit's statement:
|
| > As part of the agreement, Intuit admitted no wrongdoing
|
| I hate this and I don't understand why the government always
| agrees to it. Isn't an admission of wrongdoing more valuable
| than a tiny fine? Why do they always accept this kind of
| settlement? Isn't it both the right thing to do and better
| politics to keep the case going until the corporation at least
| has to admit it broke the law?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| There are two reasons to take a settlement:
|
| 1. You're not sure if you will win.
|
| 2. You don't want to pay the cost of fighting.
|
| If the two sides roughly agree on the likelihood of victory,
| it makes sense to settle so both can save legal costs. You
| can multiply the probability of victory by the spoils and
| make that the settlement amount. The costs and risks of
| fighting give some more incentive to come to a compromise
| even when the odds are unclear.
|
| Sometimes settlements do include an admission of wrongdoing.
| The fact that this one didn't is a suggestion that TurboTax
| had some strength in the negotiation. Either the case was not
| a slam dunk, or the states had some kind of other
| constraints. Maybe they judged that negotiating for more
| money was more valuable than an admission of guilt (which is
| easy to argue, since the consumers harmed will get utility
| from the money in their bank account).
| rgbrenner wrote:
| Is that a full refund? The cheapest Turbotax product is $60 +
| 50 for state.
| tynpeddler wrote:
| I assumed that TurboTax has already adjusted their pricing
| tiers in response to the lawsuit since my vague memory of
| many years ago is that the lower tier was about $30. If
| someone can give more accurate pricing information for the
| effected years that would be cool.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| The economy is rigged. Intuit made $5.7 billion in revenue
| (2021) and the fine is only $141m.
|
| I agree with you. Miscarriage of justice. Like a bank robber
| only having to return the money as the "fine" and zero
| punishment after.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| The right comparison is yearly income - $2.062B. From the
| 10K, TurboTax and Mint are 37% of revenue. Mint is probably
| negligible, so the income from TurboTax is $0.67B a year or
| 5x the fine.
| wmeredith wrote:
| > As part of the agreement, Intuit admitted no wrongdoing
|
| It was literally just a cost of doing business. They did
| nothing wrong*
|
| *According to our justice system.
| tynpeddler wrote:
| I don't think Intuit's total revenue is relevant to this
| discussion. The most relevant number is how much money did
| they make off this little scheme which seems to be much less
| than their total revenue. I didn't see this value in the
| article, nor was I able to find TurboTax's pricing model for
| the years in questions so I went off (my very fuzzy) memory
| that their lowest tier was about $30.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"I don't think Intuit's total revenue is relevant to this
| discussion. The most relevant number is how much money did
| they make off this little scheme which seems to be much
| less than their total revenue."
|
| So following this logic, unethical behavior, deceptive
| practices and bogus advertising is less important than the
| percentage of total revenue gotten from those practices?
| That sounds like a talking point straight out of the Intuit
| PR book. Without considering total revenue, a fine like
| this is just the cost of doing business for Intuit, a
| footnote on an otherwise wonderful corporate earnings
| statement.
|
| Do you also suppose that $30 was always the true cost to
| the victims? There's no shortage of people that live hand
| to mouth who would have been negatively impacted by being
| duped out of that $30.
|
| And just for historical perspective this is a company that
| signed an agreement with the IRS back in 2002 to provide
| "Free File" to American tax payers in exchange for the IRS
| not creating a competing free file platform.[1]. Not only
| did they fail to honor their agreement but they actively
| engaged in subverting it. What's the fair price for abusing
| the public trust? It's not unreasonable to think that some
| of that $30 was actually used by Intuit to pay lobbyists to
| ensure those same duped people continued to have no viable
| free filing option available to them.
|
| [1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2002-free-online-
| electronic-...
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| When you ignore a red light, the fine is not calculated
| based on whether you had an accident or not. For a fine to
| be significant, it has to exceed the profit made from the
| crime, otherwise you'll keep running red lights until you
| actually crash or run someone over.
|
| Given its profits, Intuit could easily survive a fine of
| one billion, and would think twice about implementing
| similar frauds in the future. Behaving ethically would be
| in the best interest of their stockholders.
| koolba wrote:
| > When you ignore a red light, the fine is not calculated
| based on whether you had an accident or not. For a fine
| to be significant, it has to exceed the profit made from
| the crime, otherwise you'll keep running red lights until
| you actually crash or run someone over.
|
| Sure but that would still be based on the profits of the
| scheme, not any other unrelated revenue. In your traffic
| light analogy it'd be like billing the ticket based upon
| how many miles per year you drive rather than the speed
| limit or how fast you were going.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > For a fine to be significant, it has to exceed the
| profit made from the crime
|
| I think their point is that we don't know how much profit
| Intuit made from the crime (at least, I couldn't find it
| in the article). The assumption is that tricking people
| into paying to file when they didn't have to is not 100%
| of their revenue.
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