It is pointed out that there is an online service for tax filing support that can not be found at all in the free plan
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In the United States, tax returns can be made free of charge if the annual income is less than $ 66,000. However, the fact that filing itself is a little bothersome is similar to that of Japan's tax return, so a number of services have been developed to assist tax filing. One of them, ' TurboTax ', has been pointed out that it is difficult to use the free plan because there are too many calls to the paid plan.
Here's How TurboTax Just Tricked You Into Paying to File Your Taxes — ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you-into-paying-to-file-your-taxes
It is pointed out by the non-profit news site ProPublica that monitors abuse of power. TurboTax is one of several free tax filing services that came out after we searched Google on the key phrases 'irs (United States Internal Revenue Service)', 'free (free)' and 'file taxes (tax filing)' Especially, there were many words 'FREE'.
TurboTax Official Site: File Taxes Online, Tax Filing Made Easy
The appearance of the site looks like this. Certainly 'FREE' stands out.
Reporter Elliot and others first proceeded with the tax filing with a profile called a cleaner registered with the handyman service TaskRabbit . However, if you are a self-employed person, you will not know that it will cost $ 119.99 (about 13,000 yen).
This is clearly shown in the price list and not hidden.
Therefore, we changed to setting that health insurance is not
Although it is possible that the conditions for using the free plan are quite limited, ProPublica thoroughly examines the source code, and all users who visited the site by TurboTax are 'NONFFA (Non Free File Alliance)', that is, the free plan Discover that you are tagged as a potential paid plan customer, not a targeted user. Furthermore, I discovered that the application for the free plan can be made only from the dedicated page ' taxfreedom.com (redirect destination: https://turbotax.intuit.com/taxfreedom/ )'.
Actually, this is written correctly when you look at the support page.
What is the TurboTax Free File program?-TurboTax® Support
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1900583-what-is-the-turbotax-free-file-program
It is not accessible from the 'regular' TurboTax.com website. ('Normal' can not be accessed from TurboTax.com)
'Taxfreedom.com' has an orange 'See if you verify' button waiting. If you click it, you will be asked some questions whether it fits the free plan, and if it fits, you can use the free plan.
However, ProPublica knows that this free plan is called 'Freedom Edition', and searches for 'turbotax freedom' on Google again, and 'Free File Program' by TurboTax appears at the top of the search results. Move to the link destination. The link destination of this link with 'Ad' mark is similar to the page of 'taxfreedom.com', but apart from the orange button, blue 'Start for Free' The button is provided. It seems that the blue button is connected to the free plan, but the orange button is actually the entrance of the free plan like 'taxfreedom.com' and the blue button is returned to the usual 'TurboTax.com' . In addition, in the environment at hand, this page could not be reached.
ProPublica points out that this orange and blue button color scheme is the 'dark pattern' whose purpose is to fool the user . Consumer groups also say that if the 'free plan' has not achieved its purpose, it should be improved or omitted, and it is against the IRS that monitoring of the program was inadequate in the first place. Even the voice of criticism seems to be rising.
As spokesman Rick Heinemann did not respond to a question from ProPublica about 'Why not automatically assign qualified persons to free plans,' TurboTax makes a 'simple' declaration This free plan is available to 50 million people, and those who fit the other plans are offered their plans and prices. '
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in Note, Web Service, Posted by logc_nt