Intuit/TurboTax would love it if filing was so hard it's practically impossible, without the use of TurboTax. * In 2007, Intuit lobbied to make sure taxpayers

Intuit/TurboTax would love it if filing was so hard it's practically impossible, without the use of TurboTax. * In 2007, Intuit lobbied to make sure taxpayers cannot electronically file their tax returns directly to the IRS by negotiating a deal preventing the IRS from setting up its own web portal for e-filing. * In 2009, Intuit spent nearly $2 million in political contributions to eliminate free online state tax filing for low income residents in California. * Between 2001 and 2010, Intuit Inc., maker of the tax-preparation software TurboTax, spent more than $1.7 million on lobbying in an attempt to kill ReadyReturn. Proposed statewide rollout of the ReadyReturn program was defeated in the California legislature in 2006. The FTB revived it on their own for the 2007 tax year, expanding it to cover one million Californians * From 2009-2014, Intuit spent nearly $13 million lobbying. Intuit spent $1 million on opposing ReadyReturn, against John Chang, a Democrat who supported ReadyRun. Joseph Bankman, professor of tax law, Stanford Law School, and advocate of simplified filing, believes that the campaign warned politicians that if they supported free filing, Intuit would help their opponents. * On March 26, 2013, ProPublica reported that the company lobbied against return-free filing as recently as 2011. One year later, ProPublica reported that the company appeared to be linked to a number of op-eds and letters to Congress in a campaign advocating against direct tax filing backed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, an advocacy organization of which Intuit is a member. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn