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ProPublica
@propublica
, 19 tweets, 8 min read Read on Twitter
1/ Here’s how @TeamTurboTax tricks Americans into paying each year to file — even though they qualify for the fully free product.

It involves some creative wording, a hard(er) to find 2nd site and something called “dark patterns.” More on that later.

Let’s get to filing! 👇👇👇
2/ The first step: a simple google search for “IRS FREE FILE TAXES.”

The first link looks promising, doesn’t it?

It contains the word “free” five times!

*click*
3/ Next, we end up at the @TurboTax homepage. What a relief! The page says that filing will be “FREE Guaranteed.”
4/ Context: as part of the #FreeFileAlliance, companies that offer products like @TeamTurboTax have agreed to offer free online tax prep + filing for people making less than $66k — as long as the IRS doesn’t offer a free service for everyone. propub.li/2IO9tbF
5/ For the sake of this experiment, we’re trying filing as 2 different (real) people, both making under $66k/yr:

- A house cleaner making $29k filing as an independent contractor w/ a 1099-MISC form
- A Walgreens cashier making $30k/yr who couldn’t afford health insurance
6/ So, we start the process by creating a profile for our house cleaner and entering information about his finances, including information from his 1099-MISC form.

But then, we get some bad news: @TeamTurboTax is going to have to charge us $119.99 to continue!

What gives?!
7/ It turns out that our house cleaner’s 1099-MISC and need to claim expenses for cleaning supplies requires us to pay for an upgrade to TurboTax’s paid options.

What happened to “FREE GUARANTEED”?

Let’s try this again.
8/ We log out, make a new account on @TurboTax and enter in the information for our Walgreens cashier who made $30,000 and couldn’t afford health insurance.
9/ But, after clicking through a dozen+ slides we get hit with the same result: another *required* upgrade.

Apparently the form we need to file saying that the cashier can’t afford health insurance comes with a *mandatory* $59.99 charge.
10/ This doesn’t make any sense. The IRS’s Free File Program clearly states that anyone who makes under $66,000 is eligible to file w/ free options. So why are we being charged?

We did some digging…. Here’s what we found:

….(ready for this?)
11/ The ACTUAL @TurboTax “free file” version is on a different site altogether.

Our google search took us to promises of FREE GUARANTEED, but we were actually using a version of @TeamTurboTax that charges for services that the ACTUAL Free File compliant version offers for free
12/ Let’s review:

☝️The same company.
✌️The same services.
👌Different website.

👊But only one of them is actually part of Free File.

Ok.

So how do you get to @TeamTurboTax’s *actually* free product? It took us a bit of digging. propub.li/2IO9tbF
13/ This kind of coercive user experience design is called “DARK PATTERNS.”

It’s when a website tricks or coerces you to buy something that you didn’t mean to. There’s even a Hall of Shame full of examples of this kind of trickery: darkpatterns.org/hall-of-shame
14/ It already betrayed us, but we go back to our original google search, IRS FREE FILE TAXES, and find a link to an IRS site. It takes us to 12 companies that offer Free File, each with their own very particular requirements.

We click on @TurboTax Free File program.🤞
15/ It takes us to a homepage that looks completely different than TurboTax.com
16/ We made accounts for both the house cleaner and cashier and guess what?

We didn’t have to pay anything.

Not for our 1099-MISC, not for our health insurance situation.
17/ We asked a @TeamTurboTax spokesperson why the company didn’t tell us we were eligible to file for free when we made accounts at TurboTax.com, but he didn’t respond. He gave us this statement:
18/ Thanks for clearing that up, Rick.

....But we have a few more questions.

In conclusion: If you make under $66,000 this year, make sure to start your taxes next year from the IRS Free File website
👇👇👇
irs.gov/filing/free-fi…
19/ Did any of you have an experience like this using @TeamTurboTax? Or some other service? Do tell.

And if you want to keep up with @ProPublica stories like this, sign up here:
go.propublica.org/bigstory-social
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ProPublica
@propublica
1/ Yesterday, our “Zero Tolerance” series was honored as a Pulitzer finalist for public service. It all began with @gingerthomp1’s work uncovering conditions at Border Patrol detention centers where thousands of children were sent.

propub.li/2VSqu8A
2/This included a recording of children sobbing and begging for their parents in June 2018.

The audio set off a political firestorm. The children’s cries were played in Congress. Protesters blared the recording at demonstrations.
propub.li/2UmobJb
3/ Faced with this uproar, Trump within 48 hours signed an executive order to end the policy and keep migrant families together.

By July, the child heard in the recording, a 6-year-old girl from El Salvador named Jimena, was reunited with her mother.
propub.li/2Gskyhg
Read 5 tweets
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ProPublica
@propublica
1/ Today The #Pulitzer Prize Board announced that three of @hannahdreier’s articles from her series on MS-13 have won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.

Here’s a look at the stories that are being honored and how they came to be:
2/ After Trump seized on MS-13’s violence to promote tougher immigration policies, @hannahdreier realized that anti-immigrant rhetoric and police bias were undermining efforts to combat a brutal gang that preyed on Latino teenagers.
propub.li/2UET4O4
3/Her first piece (published w/ @NYMag) told the story of Henry, a high school #MS13 member who worked with law enforcement for about a year thinking they’d help him escape and start a new life.

Instead, they turned him over to immigration authorities.

propub.li/2UB2Roh
Read 11 tweets
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ProPublica
@propublica
1/ Yesterday, we published a story on how Congress may be about to ban the government from offering free online tax filing for all.

In response, folks around the world took the opportunity to brag about how much easier they have it.
👇 👇 👇
2/ Take Japan for example, where most employees don’t even have to file a tax return.

So, here are all the other places it’s likely cheaper (and easier) to file your taxes:
3/ (By the way, in the US you have @TurboTax @Intuit @HRBlock + others to thank for the legislation. They spent a combined $6.6 million last year lobbying on the issue.)

(Also, if you don’t see your country on this list, by all means: pile on.)
propub.li/2GeKnkx
Read 29 tweets

Related threads

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Justin Elliott
@JustinElliott
NEW: We tried to file our taxes for free on TurboTax as a lower-income American. We found deceptive design, misleading Google ads, and digital tags TurboTax uses to make sure we paid to file, even though we were eligible to do it for free.
propublica.org/article/turbot…
w/ @lhwaldron
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has chosen to create a “Free Edition” which, if you click, actually puts you on track to potentially pay $60 or $120. It even tags you in the source code as not in the truly free version.
This is the image for the potentially paying track version:
Unlike the “Free Edition,” the truly free version is called the “Freedom Edition.” At one point we actually googled for the Freedom Edition and found that TurboTax had purchased ads that tried to route us to the (paid track) “Free Edition”
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Penny Midas Rollo
@PennyMidasRollo
001/ [article content in this tweet series 001-180 reproduced with permission from Martin Howe QC of Lawyers for Britain @lawyers4britain]
#quote "Leaving the EU on WTO terms: pulling down the barriers to world trade
Introduction: why prices will FALL after Brexit, not rise" /002
002/ #quote "Over the past couple of weeks, the media have been full of lurid scare stories about what will happen if the UK leaves the EU on WTO terms, because negotiations with the EU do not result in a withdrawal agreement." /003
#tariffs #NoDeal #Brexit #WTO #ProjectFear #shortages #food #medicines
003/ #quote "One of the most ridiculous and UNJUSTIFIED of these absurd scare stories is that it will lead to higher prices, and even shortages, of foods and medicines." /004
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Jared
@jsfranklin221
1/ I consider myself to be relatively knowledgeable when it comes to personal finance...I’ve invested a lot of time educating myself over the years. The ~10 focuses & my beliefs will always change which is why it’s such an interesting topic. It also may be the most important.
2/ I’m going to share short and concise opinions each day and see how long I can go on for. Note that personal finance is highly.. personal. Not everything is advisable and applicable to everyone.
3/ Keep your personal burn low. Budgeting is important (and it’s actually easy). @PersonalCapital is the new @mint. Open an account and use their free service. Tracking income and spend is the first step to developing a budget and lowering expenses.
Read 102 tweets
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Stephanie Hurlburt @ Microsoft Build
@sehurlburt
Here is a lesson passed onto me by many wise people when I first started learning B2B sales, now I pass it onto you:

The higher you charge, the more you’re valued and respected. The correct price is “complaining about the price but still paying.”
Let me clarify: meaning for the same customer and the same exact damn product, only tweaking the price factor, your product will be respected and valued more at a higher price.

It’s human psychology. We associate money with value, and we also want to actively justify high prices
And it’s more than that, I’m not a psychology expert and haven’t figured it out but I assure you the advice holds truth.

Now apply it to salary.

Stop pretending value is this objective thing easily seen by all. We are human.

Ask for more money.
Read 11 tweets
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Matthew Ball
@ballmatthew
1/ Tweetstorm on what I see as the future of Disney (detailed here: redef.com/original/disne…)

There are four core questions: (1) What is their D2C play; (2) How does it change Disney; (3) How will it do; and (4) What does it mean for Disney’s future and the rest of the industry
2/ "Disneyflix" is likely to start as Disney-only version of Netflix, but it will come to include far more than video. Look for it to bundle in comics (eg the Marvel Unlimited subscription), eBooks, app games, music, eCommerce (merch, park passes), etc., over time
3/ This started with Disney Life in the UK, but the broad concept has underpinned Disney for decades. In 1957, Walt himself outlined a vision of the future where all of Disney’s IP, business units, offerings and employees worked in concert. Yet, this was largely impossible
Read 37 tweets
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laser is the sauce
@sarahjeong
In court for day 3 of Waymo v. Uber. So far there's been high drama and very little lawsuit. Yesterday's dispatch is here: theverge.com/2018/2/6/16982…
Still in motions practice but we're looking at a spreadsheet of deleted texts on Kalanick's phone, this is the war of the damning spreadsheets
WE'RE BACK TO THE GREED IS GOOD CLIP
Read 251 tweets

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