Nearly 17,000 Montanans will benefit from a settlement reached between Montana Attorney General (AG) Austin Knudsen and TurboTax, according to a press release on May 6.
This settlement resulted from a lawsuit filed earlier this year which alleged that Intuit TurboTax used deceptive and unfair marketing practices in its ads as well as its online functionality. Affected individuals will receive a payment directly from the settlement in the next few months, the AG’s office stated, which will be automatic and not require one to file a claim.
A 2019 report by ProPublica, a non-profit journalism firm, sparked the lawsuit by claiming Intuit has been on a “20-year fight to stop Americans from filing their taxes for free,” and further claiming Intuit “knows it’s deceiving people.”
The lawsuit, filed by Knudsen and eight other attorney generals, states in part: “In 2018, Intuit employees responsible for marketing strategy feared that the name change from ‘TurboTax Free File Program’ would negatively impact the ranking of the company’s ‘freemium’ product.
The lawsuit goes on to state that Intuit bid on search terms with top search engines like Google and Bing that would redirect to the company’s commercial paid product page. All 13 of those search terms, however, included the word ‘free’ somewhere in the phrasing; such as ‘free file’ or ‘free file irs.’ What’s more is the company featured a link on its homepage called “Start for Free!” which directed the user to TurboTax’s commercial and paid products.
Consumers in all 50 states are slated to benefit from the settlement with Intuit.
Eligible Montana residents will receive payment directly to their account.
