“In spite of this advertising, many consumers who took the time to gather their documents, entrust their personal information to Intuit, and begin the filing process found that they could not file their taxes for free.”
One TurboTax ad was little more than an announcer saying “free” over and over. Most filers could not use the free version, and found out only after typing in their whole financial life. Anyone earning $73,000 or less already qualifies for the IRS Free File program. Intuit ran Super Bowl ads selling “free” while the actual free option sat on irs.gov.