April 15, 2025

Ahead of Tax Day, Warren, Wyden, Pocan Demand Intuit Explain Continued Efforts to Kill IRS’ Free Filing Alternative, Overcharge Taxpayers on TurboTax

Senator Warren’s office tested TurboTax, finding that a sample taxpayer would pay $128 to file her taxes using TurboTax’s “free” software, while being upsold multiple times in the process.

Intuit spent nearly $4 million in 2023 and again in 2024 to sabotage “Direct File,” the IRS’ free tax filing program

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – Ahead of Tax Day, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Ron Wyden (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, along with Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), pressed Intuit on the company’s lobbying to end Direct File, a free tool for taxpayers to file directly with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and its misleading sales tactics to upsell customers using TurboTax.  

In 2024, the IRS launched Direct File, an online program that allows people with simple filing situations to file their taxes online for free and directly with the IRS. Direct File has helped hundreds of thousands of taxpayers file their taxes accurately and securely. The program received excellent reviews and has expanded to 25 states and over 30 million eligible Americans. 

Despite Treasury Secretary Bessent’s promise to keep Direct File going through the 2025 tax filing season, the long-term future of the program continues to be threatened, in no small part due to Intuit’s lobbying. Intuit has spent nearly $4 million in 2023 and again in 2024 attempting to kill the program. During the 2024 election cycle, Intuit joined other commercial tax preparation companies to make large donations to Republican congressmembers who later worked to eliminate Direct File. Recent reports also indicate that some members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) hope to end Direct File entirely, and Republican lawmakers, bankrolled by Intuit, have continued to call on the Trump Administration to end the program.

Intuit also has a history of misleading customers about costs, relentlessly upselling taxpayers, and misusing customer data. A simulated filing by Senator Warren’s office found that these efforts continue. Despite TurboTax’s promises that its services are free, Senator Warren’s office found that a sample taxpayer would pay $128 to file her taxes, while being upsold multiple times in the process. In comparison, the cost for that same taxpayer would be $0 on DirectFile with no upselling. 

“It is unconscionable that Intuit is engaged in an ‘aggressive’ and ‘covert’ war on Direct File, which makes it easy and free for millions of taxpayers across the country to file their taxes, while misleading, upselling, and overcharging them for your own services. You should end these abusive tactics and relinquish your efforts to eliminate Direct File once and for all,” concluded the lawmakers.

The lawmakers pressed Intuit for more information on its efforts to eliminate Direct File, its relentless upselling tactics through TurboTax, and its lobbying and donations over the last year. 

Senator Warren is leading voice in advocating for low-income taxpayers and for improved IRS resources: 

  • In February 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) reintroduced the Internal Revenue Service Math and Taxpayer Help (IRS MATH) Act, to improve math error notices — an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) authority used to quickly adjust taxpayers’ returns.

  • In January 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren led over 135 members of Congress in writing to Treasury Secretary-Designate Scott Bessent and Internal Revenue Services’ (IRS) Commissioner-Designate Billy Long, urging them to maintain and expand the IRS’ Direct File program. 

  • In October 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Representative Katie Porter (D-Calif.) wrote to the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service urging the agencies to make the Direct File tax filing program more secure and accessible by ending reliance on ID.me, which uses a flawed facial recognition software.

  • In April 2024, following the 2024 tax filing deadline, at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned IRS Commissioner Daniel I. Werfel, on the IRS’s use of Inflation Reduction Act funds to successfully pilot a Direct File program, a first-of-its-kind option for Americans in twelve states to be able to file their taxes online directly with the IRS, easily and for free.

  • In April 2024, Senator Warren and colleagues applauded the success of Direct File’s Pilot during the 2024 tax filing season, highlighting rave reviews, millions of dollars in refunds claimed and filing fees saved.

  • In April 2024, Senator Warren sent a letter to Chair Lina M. Khan of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), blasting Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, for continuing to relentlessly upsell TurboTax users despite numerous FTC and state lawsuits and settlements. Senator Warren applauded the FTC’s oversight of Intuit, and urged the Commission to continue to take action to protect taxpayers from tax preparation companies that pile junk fees onto users.

  • In March 2024, Senator Warren celebrated the successful launch of the IRS’s Direct File pilot.

  • In March 2024, Senator Warren highlighted the positive feedback that the IRS’s Direct File pilot in 12 states has received from taxpayers and asked Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to commit to expanding and extending the program in 2025 if positive feedback continues, which Yellen agreed to. 

  • In February 2024, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, Sanders, and Representative Porter sent a response to Intuit, blasting the company for its failure to answer basic questions the lawmakers asked in their January 2, 2024 letter seeking an accounting of the expenses underlying the company’s massive federal research tax breaks.

  • In January 2024, Senators Warren, Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Representative Katie Porter (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Intuit requesting a full accounting of the expenses underlying the company’s massive federal research tax breaks by January 16, 2024. Intuit disclosed that it received $94 million in federal research tax credits in 2022, while simultaneously spending millions lobbying against the establishment of a free program for Americans to file their taxes online. 

  • In October 2023, Senators Warren, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Blumenthal, Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Representative Porter sent letters to five tax preparation companies—H&R Block, TaxAct, TaxSlayer, Ramsey Solutions, and Intuit—that recently received notices of penalty offenses from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding the misuse of taxpayer’s sensitive and confidential information. 

  • In October 2023, Senators Warren and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Representatives Porter, Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), and Don Beyer (D-Va.) released a statement supporting the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) joint announcement of their 2024 pilot of Direct File, a program that allows Americans to file tax returns digitally and free of charge. The lawmakers acknowledged the Inflation Reduction Act’s role in the program’s development, and stated their intention to support the IRS’s efforts to develop and expand the Direct File pilot. 

  • In August 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Porter sent a letter to the Free File Alliance, the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights, Intuit, and H&R Block admonishing the companies’ relentless lobbying against the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) direct free filing tool. 

  • In July 2023, Senators Warren, Wyden, Blumenthal, Duckworth, Sanders, and Whitehouse and Representative Porter released a report revealing the outrageous, extensive, and potentially illegal sharing of taxpayers’ sensitive personal and financial information with Meta by online tax preparation companies. The lawmakers also sent a letter to the IRS, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice highlighting their key findings and calling on these departments to fully investigate this matter and prosecute any company or individuals who violated the law.

  • In June 2023, Senators Warren and Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Representatives Sherman, Porter, and Beyer, led a coalition of 99 Democratic lawmakers in a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Deputy Treasury Secretary Adewale Adeyemo, applauding the IRS’s announcement of a pilot of a free tax filing tool next year.

  • In May 2023, Senator Warren’s call for a Free E-File Program was finally answered by the IRS through the Inflation Reduction Act .

  • In April 2023, Senators Warren and Carper led 29 other senators in a letter to the IRS Commissioner, urging the agency to simplify the tax process and broaden access to free e-filing options.

  • In April 2023, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Warren questioned the IRS Commissioner about the agency’s failed Free-File partnership with private tax preparation software companies and called on the agency to implement a direct E-File program. 

  • In December 2022, Senators Warren and Wyden and Representatives Porter and Sherman sent letters to tax preparation companies H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer, plus big tech firms Meta and Google, amid reports that the tax preparation companies have been secretly transmitting individual taxpayers’ sensitive financial information to Meta and Google

  • In August 2022, Senator Warren highlighted key priorities she secured in the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act, including establishing an IRS task force to look into developing and running an IRS-run free direct E-File tax return system, based on Senator Warren’s Tax Filing Simplification Act. 

  • In July 2022, Senator Warren led 22 lawmakers to introduce the Tax Filing Simplification Act of 2022, legislation that would direct the IRS to develop its own free online tax preparation and filing service that would simplify the tax filing process for millions of Americans. 

  • In June 2022, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen agreed with Senator Warren on the need to create a free tax filing system that actually works for Americans. 

  • In June 2022, Senator Warren and Representatives Porter and Sherman sent a letter to Richard K. Delmar, Acting Treasury Department Inspector, General, J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and Andrew Katsaros, Acting Inspector General at the Federal Trade Commission, regarding troubling reports of Intuit's abuse of the revolving door and the company's hiring of former federal regulators and influence-peddlers to defend its shady business practices. In the letter, which is a follow up to the prior April 2022 letter, the lawmakers call out Intuit for forcing American taxpayers into paying for services that should be free, and request an in-depth investigation into the company and its use of the revolving door to influence policy decisions at those agencies. 

  • In April 2022, Senator Warren and Representatives Sherman and Porter sent a letter to Intuit regarding the company’s unethical use of the revolving door to hire former regulators to defend their shady business practices that scam taxpayers out of billions of dollars. In June 2022, the lawmakers sent a follow-up.

  • In February 2022, Senator Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent a letter to the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Treasury and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, calling on them to open an investigation into the unethical revolving door between the world’s largest accounting firms and the Treasury Department and IRS. 

  • In February 2022, Senator Warren made the case for increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the Build Back Better Act and called on the administration to create the simplified filing tools proposed in her Tax Filing Simplification Act. 

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