Tell HN: TurboTax Dark Patterns

Just ran into something new and extra scummy this last week when doing my taxes with TurboTax. I have been using TurboTax for several years so am used to avoiding the normal upsell dark patterns. This was something new.

So, when going through the data entra process it prompts you towards the beginning to authorize sharing of your data. This page has a big “Skip for now” button. No big deal; I click that and it goes to the next step. I think to myself good on you Inuit. You made your pitch, I said no, and you respected that and moved on.

Then almost at the end of the whole process in the Review step just before File it asks again. Prompting me to sign and authorize Intuit to share my data with other parts of the business and third parties. Only this time there is no skip button. The only visible way to move on is to review and sign; authorizing data sharing. The way to skip this is to click the “File” step all the way in the bottom left hand corner to move past that screen.

Totally unintuitive and for a less technical user unlikely that they would know that they could do that.

Anyway just wanted to warn others. My taxes are pretty complex but next year going to do my research and find somewhere else to do my taxes.

Edit: punctuation, phrasing, typing on mobile is hard.