Intuit & Turbo Tax: Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep
Corporate Gossip
Becca Platsky
5.0 • 590 Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2024
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why does doing taxes suck so much? Because Capitalism!
Over the past 20 years, the lovable dweebs at the IRS have been on a quest to make filing personal taxes free and easy. They say America should be like other countries, where the government sends you a pre-filled tax return and all you have to do is sign-off. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Like what kind of deranged psychopath wouldn't want that?
Enter Intuit, maker of tax preparation software Turbo Tax, and their disgruntled band of lobbyists. Their entire business model depends on you being afraid to screw up your taxes. So they bribe lawmakers to over-complicate tax laws, threaten the government into underfunding the IRS, and run dubious misinformation campaigns alleging that free tax filing is somehow… racist?
The nefarious knuckleheads at Intuit would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for the determined efforts of Propublica journalists. They joined forces with the unlikely heroes at the IRS, and from a muggy basement office in Washington they stood up to Big Tax and won.
We <3 the IRS and you will too after this episode!
Links:
How Intuit Reinvents Itself (Fortune)
The TurboTax Trap (ProPublica Investigation series)
IRS makes free tax return program permanent and is asking all states to join in 2025
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Zach Seiler had it all. |
| 0:05.0 | A fresh Stanford MBA with a concentration in business ethics, |
| 0:10.0 | a one-bedroom apartment in a luxury high-rise with ocean views, |
| 0:14.0 | and a closet full of branded fleeced vests. |
| 0:17.0 | And he's filing his taxes with the most popular software on the market, TurboTax. |
| 0:22.6 | TurboTax was his dream girl, I mean his dream tax preparation service, a super sexy user interface, guidance on all of the hottest deductions, and it was free. |
| 0:34.6 | It was true love. |
| 0:36.6 | Zach finished his taxes and clicked submit. |
| 0:39.3 | Ah, that was easy. |
| 0:42.3 | Wait, wait, what the f***? |
| 0:44.3 | A $129 service fee to file? |
| 0:46.3 | It was supposed to be free. |
| 0:49.3 | He looked for help, no number to call, maybe the chat bot. |
| 0:53.3 | But after several frustrating attempts to phrase his question with a maddening level of precision, |
| 0:59.0 | he slammed his laptop shut. |
| 1:02.0 | This was supposed to be free and easy. |
| 1:05.0 | His heart sank. |
| 1:07.0 | He was feeling taken advantage of, lied to. |
| 1:10.0 | There's a word for this, he thought. |
| 1:12.4 | His college girlfriend used it once. |
| 1:14.8 | Was he being gaslit? |
| 1:17.8 | Ugh. |
... |
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