$141M settlement over TurboTax ads

NEW YORK — The company behind the TurboTax tax-filing program will pay $141 million to customers across the U.S. who were deceived by misleading promises of free tax-filing services, New York’s attorney general announced Wednesday.

Under the terms of a settlement signed by the attorneys general of all 50 states, Mountain View, California-based Intuit Inc. will suspend TurboTax’s “free, free, free” ad campaign and pay restitution to nearly 4.4 million taxpayers, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.

James said her investigation into Intuit was sparked by a 2019 ProPublica report that found the company was using deceptive tactics to steer low-income tax filers away from the federally supported free services for which they qualified — and toward its own commercial products, instead.