Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

I popped "file free tax returns turbotax" into Google and found the page directly listed. The page in question is https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/free-editi...

The robots.txt for the intuit.com domain is: https://turbotax.intuit.com/robots.txt

Not listing in robots.txt to block the personal-taxes folder, which has many offerings and a sub from that is the free one.

I'm not seeing the block that the story is on about in search and in robots.txt

What am I missing?

[EDIT ADD] Thank you for all the replies, I see what they did there now.

View on HN

You're missing that the Free File Program and Turbotax "Free Edition" are entirely different things:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2572617-what-s-the-differe...

> TurboTax Free File Program is geared towards lower-income filers, regardless of tax return complexity, and is only offered through the IRS Free File Alliance (FFA) program. No upgrades are available.

> TurboTax Free Edition, on the other hand, can be used by higher-income filers but only handles simple returns with no additional schedules. Upgrades and add-ons, such as TurboTax PLUS and Audit Defense, are available.

That's not their freefile page, that is their more limited free edition page. That's part of the confusion. The /taxfreedom/ page, which is linked to from the IRS website, is blocked in robots.txt

https://turbotax.intuit.com/taxfreedom/

That is not the free file page, and the fact that it tricks you into thinking it is is exactly the point: https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you...

As the article mentions, it's set in the metatags of the page https://turbotax.intuit.com/taxfreedom/:

    <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow,noodp" />

An archive of both pages in case they try to play the "revise history" game.

https://archive.fo/0WTCE

https://web.archive.org/web/20190423172440/https://turbotax....

https://web.archive.org/web/20190426004701/https://turbotax....

Good thinking, and nice username!

The article does conflate the meta tag and the robots.txt though (which means very little in the broader context).

The Free Edition basically dark patterns you into a paid version of TurboTax at the end. My friend in grad school was confused and ended up paying for the deluxe version, even though she started on the free version and makes like a thousand dollars a month.

The page you found is a different page, not related to the IRS' "free file"/FFA program for those who make under a certain amount. See previous coverage here: https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you...

The version you're seeing is the freemium version of TurboTax. While it says it's free, it's attempts to upsell you into paying for filing.

The version that propublica is talking about is actually free for the whole service.

As you can see by everyone's responses, you've been sidetracked -- exactly TurboTax's objective.

You got tricked! Now think what happens to less tech-savvy people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com