When corporations harm workers and consumers by cheating, stealing, or even breaking the law, cases that should be heard by a judge or jury are instead funneled into a secret system controlled by the wrongdoers in which there is no right to go to court, no right to a jury, no right to a written record, no right to discovery, no transparency, no legal precedents to follow, no opportunity for group actions when it would be too difficult or costly to file a claim alone, no guarantee of an adjudicator with legal expertise, and no meaningful judicial review. Forced arbitration requires Americans to “agree” to surrender fundamental constitutional rights-often without ever realizing they’ve done so. 9 However, when the taxpayers tried to pursue forced arbitration as required, Intuit took them back to court to stop them from using forced arbitration.įorced arbitration is a rigged system designed by corporations in which injured workers and consumers have no meaningful chance of finding justice. The duped taxpayers originally brought their cases together as a class action but were foiled by the companies’ adoption of forced arbitration clauses in their terms of use, which blocked such group actions and pushed individuals into the murky system of forced arbitration. 8 Forcing Taxpayers Into, and Out of, Forced Arbitration 7 That would equate to approximately a billion dollars in revenue for the tax preparation industry.
#Tax h r block software
6Ī 2020 Treasury Department audit found that 14 million Americans may have been duped into using paid tax software when they could have used free versions. Intuit likewise planned to “ake share in FREE market, then monetize.” 5 Their efforts paid off: roughly one-third of “free” customers at Intuit and H&R Block eventually upgraded to a paid version. In company documents, H&R Block stated, “while we are expanding our free offering, there are still opportunities to monetize within the free product… through selling additional services within the product flow as well as from filers graduating to more complex returns and/or products when they return.” 4 2 Even when taxpayers found the free version, they would have to spend hours filling in their information only to be told after the fact that they did not qualify and would have to use paid versions. A ProPublica investigation revealed that TurboTax actively hid its free version from search engines. Free, free, free, free.” 1 Internally, however, the companies sought to monetize, or outright hide, the free options. To this day, TurboTax advertisements frequently conclude with the line, “That’s right, TurboTax Free is free. The companies advertised the free options heavily.
In return for offering taxpayers a free option, the IRS agreed not to create its own free tax-filing software-as many countries have. Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax and H&R Block offered free tax filing programs for over a decade as part of the IRS Free File program. But when forcing customers into arbitration didn’t make the cases go away, the companies hypocritically turned back to the courts. Rather than take responsibility for these actions, the companies attempted to evade accountability by forcing customers into arbitration. Two of the largest online tax preparation firms are facing serious legal challenges stemming from years of tricking customers into paying for tax software that they could have used for free. The number of pending forced arbitrations against Intuit and H&Rīlock is unknown but may be over 100,000.In 2021, 17% of all consumer forced arbitrations closed were against.
Taxpayers were so galvanized by the tax preparation companies’ badīehavior that the resulting cases caused the number of all forcedĪrbitrations involving customers to soar by more than 50% over the.
But when the companyĭidn’t want to face so many cases in forced arbitration because of theĬost, the companies objected and turned back to the courts. Outraged and left with no other options, taxpayersįiled their cases in forced arbitration (a rarity). When taxpayers tried to hold the companyĪccountable by filing a case in court against them, the companies forced Intuit and H&R Block misled taxpayers into paying for a product that.
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