COLUMBUS – Thanks to a multistate settlement with the owner of TurboTax, Ohio’s Attorney General says checks will be in the mail to Ohioans who were tricked by into paying for tax services they could have gotten for free.
The $141 million settlement with Intuit, impacting 4.4 million consumers nationwide, includes $5.3 million to be paid to 174,000 Ohioans who paid to file federal tax returns from 2016 to 2018 but were eligible for free filings provided by the IRS.
Most of the checks will amount to about $30 each and are expected to be mailed by the end of May, Yost said.
Intuit became the focus of an investigation after the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica reported that Intuit was using deceptive digital tactics to steer low-income consumers toward its paid products and away from federally supported tax services that are free.
Those eligible for settlement money include consumers who paid to file federal tax returns through TurboTax for tax years 2016, 2017 and 2018 but were eligible for free filings through the IRS Free File Program, Yost said.