‘Covered consumer’ means any individual, or individuals if a joint return was filed, who in Tax Years 2016, 2017, or 2018 was (1) eligible to use an Intuit IRS Free File Product (2) began his or her tax returns using a TurboTax Free Edition Product (3) was informed that he or she was ineligible to use a TurboTax Free Edition Product (4) subsequently paid to use a TurboTax Paid Product, and (5) had not used the Intuit IRS Free File Product in a previous tax year.Īt the time, the income limit to use TurboTax’s IRS Free File offer was about $34,000.Īlthough New York put out the announcement, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., joined the agreement. The exact wording from the settlement is:
#Turbotax 2017 tax year for free#
People who “started using TurboTax’s Free Edition” in those years 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” are included, according to the release. The TurboTax settlement covers tax years 2016 through 2018. Intuit said in its own statement Wednesday that it “already adheres to most of these advertising practices and expects minimal impact to its business from implementing the remaining changes going forward.” Kerry McLean, its general counsel and executive vice president, emphasized that Intuit admitted no wrongdoing and remains “clear and fair with its customers.” Who’s eligible for a TurboTax refund? Still, the settlement requires the company to stop misrepresenting its products and make its disclosures clearer, in addition to implementing other consumer-friendly improvements. Intuit pulled out of the official IRS Free File initiative last year, though the company continues to allow some customers to file taxes for free. To do this, it allegedly changed the name of its filing services multiple times (including calling the commercial version “Free Edition”), hid its IRS Free File webpage from search engines, and made specifics about pricing and eligibility hard to find. TurboTax was accused of funneling people seeking the the IRS Free File offer to its own “freemium” product, which was widely advertised as free but actually charged fees to many customers. The agreement comes after New York and other states investigated TurboTax for encouraging customers to use paid tax prep options when they could have filed at no charge through the IRS Free File, a partnership between the government and several name-brand softwares to help Americans below certain income levels do their annual taxes. Hawaii Alaska Florida South Carolina Georgia Alabama North Carolina Tennessee RI Rhode Island CT Connecticut MA Massachusetts Maine NH New Hampshire VT Vermont New York NJ New Jersey DE Delaware MD Maryland West Virginia Ohio Michigan Arizona Nevada Utah Colorado New Mexico South Dakota Iowa Indiana Illinois Minnesota Wisconsin Missouri Louisiana Virginia DC Washington DC Idaho California North Dakota Washington Oregon Montana Wyoming Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Pennsylvania Kentucky Mississippi Arkansas Texas Get Started