Judge For FTC Rules Intuit Can’t Continue Its ‘Free To File’ Advertising Bullshit

The old saying goes: there’s only two things that are permanent, death and taxes. For quite a while now, we could have added a third item to the list: Intuit annoying us to death with its bullshit advertisement about filing for taxes for “free.” You really should go back and read our posts on this topic if you’re not familiar with it, but the topline summary is simple enough. Intuit has spent years advertising to the masses that they can file taxes for free using its TurboTax platform as part of a government program, except only a third of the public qualifies for free filing and Intuit did every last thing possible to hide the options for free filing and collected money from many who would qualify to file for free instead.

While NY Attorney General Letitia James gathered all fifty states for a lawsuit over this nonsense, and managed to settle that suit for $141 million, the FTC also took note and filed its own administrative complaint against Intuit. That complaint, filed over a year ago, didn’t seek fines or damages, instead merely seeking to allow the government to force Intuit to stop lying to the public. With these sort of FTC filings, it’s an FTC administrative judge that rules on them, and that ruling has finally come down against Intuit.

The initial decision by Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell was released today and is subject to an automatic review by the full commission. The FTC commissioners will likely rule against Intuit, which issued a statement indicating that it will take the matter to federal court. The order would be in effect for 20 years if it survives appeal.

The response from Intuit noted that the administrative law judge is “an employee of the FTC” and “ruled in favor of the FTC in the agency’s own lawsuit.” The FTC filed an administrative complaint against Intuit in March 2022.

“Intuit will appeal this groundless and seemingly predetermined decision by the FTC to rule in its own favor and is confident that when the matter ultimately returns to a neutral body Intuit will prevail, as it has previously in this matter,” the company said.

Intuit can appeal away, but complaining that FTC complaints work as prescribed by FTC process is rather silly. More important to the appeal would be Intuit’s claim that it has already implemented most of what the FTC wants to force down Intuit’s throat, though because it’s Intuit I have my doubts. This company’s practices when it comes to its supposed free to file program have been so shady, so rife with obfuscation, that I’m simply unwilling to take the company at its word.

And even if that were true, then why should the company care all that much about the provisions in the FTC judge’s order as to how it should behave in its advertising practices?

The order said Intuit “must not represent that a good or service is ‘Free'” unless it actually offers the good or service for free to all consumers, or “All the terms, conditions, and obligations upon which receipt and retention of the ‘Free’ good or service are contingent are set forth clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer so as to leave no reasonable probability that the terms of the offer might be misunderstood.”

Moreover, if an Intuit good or service is not free for most US taxpayers, that fact must be “disclosed clearly and conspicuously at the outset of any disclosures required” by the order. The order defines “clearly and conspicuously” in some detail.

“In any communication that is solely visual or solely audible, the disclosure must be made through the same means through which the communication is presented,” it says. “In any communication made through both visual and audible means, such as a television advertisement, the disclosure must be presented simultaneously in both the visual and audible portions of the communication even if the representation requiring the disclosure is made in only one means.”

So Intuit’s objection to all this appears thus far to amount to: the FTC’s decision is erroneous because the judge is an FTC employee, which is how this all works, and because we’ve already cleared up a portion of the shady practices the FTC wants us to clear up.

I’m fairly sure the suit will end up on appeal in federal court, but Intuit better come up with something stronger than that.