Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has secured $1.067 million in restitution payments by the owner of TurboTax that will be sent to almost 36,000 Arkansas consumers who paid for tax services that should have been free.
Rutledge said in a news release Tuesday that Intuit Inc. agreed to pay $141 million in restitution as the result of a multistate agreement after the company unfairly charged millions of consumers. She said Intuit also must suspend TurboTax's "free, free, free" ad campaign that lured customers with promises of free tax preparation services, only to deceive them into paying for those services.
Consumers are expected to receive a direct payment of approximately $30 for each year they were deceived into paying for filing services, the release said. Affected consumers will automatically receive notices and a check by mail.
"Intuit deliberately deceived consumers into paying for their Turbo Tax service that was actually supposed to be free," Rutledge said in the news release. "Intuit profited from its lies to Arkansans, and now with this settlement, Intuit will pay over $1 million to Arkansans for its fraud."
A multistate investigation found that Intuit engaged in several deceptive and unfair trade practices that limited consumers' participation in the IRS Free File Program, the release said. Intuit also purposefully blocked its IRS Free File landing page from search engine results during the 2019 tax filing season, effectively shutting out eligible taxpayers from filing their taxes for free.