NEW YORK – The company behind the TurboTax tax-filing program will pay $141 million to customers deceived by misleading promises of free tax-filing services, New York’s attorney general announced Wednesday.
Under the terms of a settlement signed by the attorneys general of all 50 states, Mountain View, California-based Intuit will suspend TurboTax’s “free, free, free” ad campaign and pay restitution to nearly 4.4 million taxpayers, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
James said her investigation into Intuit was sparked by a ProPublica report in 2019 that found the company used deceptive tactics to steer low-income tax filers away from the federally supported free services for which they qualified – and toward Intuit’s own commercial products.
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Intuit will pay for ‘Scamming millions of taxpayers’
“For years, Intuit misled the most vulnerable among us to make a profit. Today, every state in the nation is holding Intuit accountable for scamming millions of taxpayers, and we’re putting millions of dollars back into the pockets of impacted Americans,” James said in a statement. “This agreement should serve as a reminder to companies large and small that engaging in these…
