Just a reminder, Danielle: The IRS knows how much you made last year. They know what you paid in taxes. They know what you owe this year — or what they owe you. They just don’t tell you. Why? Lobbying efforts from companies like TurboTax. Tax prep companies have lobbied the government with one main goal: making the tax-filing process as time-consuming and wallet-emptying as possible for you. Instead of letting Americans file their taxes with the IRS for free — TurboTax maintains that tens of millions of Americans need to pay them to do math the government already did to calculate a return that the IRS already knows. That’s not the only slimy way this company tries to rake in as much profit as possible. They’ve padded their profits by cornering consumers into using their products, even using deceptive practices and outright lies to hide the free options they’re supposed to offer. Check out this investigation by ProPublica. Let’s say you made $29,000 last year as a home cleaner. If you were to Google "free tax filing,” to file your taxes this year, the first result is TurboTax. It says "Free." Hey, that sounds good. So you click it. You enter your Social Security number, your income, and your address. TurboTax walks you through more than a dozen questions and prompts. Only then does it tell you: Oh, actually, this isn't free. Because you're an independent contractor, you'll need to pay. That'll be $119.99. But that’s not right — the government has a deal with TurboTax: anyone making under $66,000 is supposed to be able to file for free. You made $29,000. You absolutely qualify. And TurboTax knows that. They just don’t tell you. Oops, must have slipped their mind, right? Nope. It’s by design. In their own source code, they had secretly tagged you as "NONFFA” or "Non Free File Alliance”. A hidden label that put you on track to pay, even though you were eligible to file for free. TurboTax calls its free version "Freedom Edition." Not the "Free Edition"— that's a different one. A paid product with a confusingly similar name. Got it? So once you know the free version exists, you search for it. And right there on the free-to-file, er, “Freedom Edition” page, there's a button labeled "Start for Free." Finally! Oops, that takes you right back to the version where you pay. The confusing product names, the upgrade walls, the frustrating user experience — that's the product. It’s how they make their money. For decades, we've accepted this as normal. It isn't. In 2021, we took on the giant tax prep companies and we got the IRS to launch Direct File — a product that let Americans file their taxes directly with the government actually for free. Free. No upgrades. No hidden fees. Just your government doing its job. And 94% of people who used it in the 13 state pilot program rated their experience "excellent" or "above average." It was growing. It was working. It was ready to be expanded nationwide. So, of course, Trump killed it. Could that be because TurboTax's parent company, Intuit, gave more than $1 million to Trump's inauguration and lobbied aggressively against the program? Seems pretty likely to me. Ending Direct File is estimated to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars — money that will flow directly into the pockets of private tax prep companies. It's time to stop letting a $4 billion company profit off of a process that the government could — and once did — make free. So I just introduced legislation to get Congress to reverse Trump’s decision to cancel Direct File. Danielle, add your name to say you support bringing back Direct File and you oppose Trump killing the program. Let’s fight side by side to defeat corporate-friendly Republicans and greedy tax prep companies.
Thanks for being a part of this, Elizabeth  |
