The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is staying the course with its fraud investigation into Intuit’s TurboTax even though the Supreme Court reeled in the agency’s powers to hand down penalties in consumer fraud cases, The Information reported, citing unnamed sources with insider information.
Intuit’s TurboTax declined the FTC’s settlement offers twice, partly due to the newly gained leverage following the high court’s ruling. TurboTax is accused of not being transparent about free tax filing options. The FTC’s settlement offers with Intuit were not disclosed.
The FTC and Intuit are now reportedly in talks to reach a resolution.
See also: FTC Probes Intuit Over Alleged Deceptive TurboTax Marketing
Intuit got the attention of state and federal lawmakers after a series of ProPublica articles were published regarding the company’s free tax filing services. The news sparked a public outcry and investigations followed. For three years, the FTC and state attorneys general have been after TurboTax.
When FTC Chair Lina Khan was appointed in June 2021, she decided to move forward with the fraud investigation into Intuit despite the agency’s curtailed power in consumer fraud cases.
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Intuit has a valuation of $150 billion, per the report.
Read more: Credit Karma Integrates With TurboTax for Faster Refunds
TurboTax allegedly routed some users to a paid version of the software instead of the free version, which was part of the Free File program supported by the IRS. Intuit allegedly also prevented the government’s Free File site from showing up in a Google search, according to the ProPublica series.
