FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
A few years back I got audited, and it was called an "electronic audit" by the IRS. Which basically meant that they had their computer systems scour a bunch of the bank records and discovered that I had forgotten to claim a 1099 for some contract work I had. OK, so they sent me a computer print out and they had cross checked everything on my return electronically, my property tax deductions, my stock dividends so on and so on.<p>Ok, so if they can do all that automatically for an "electronic audit" why am I filing a return, just run that thing and send it to me and I can file an exception if there is something on it I disagree with.<p>I think the answer has already been identified in several other comments here, a heavy lobby effort on the part of Intuit, H&R and whoever else to keep it tricky and complex so you have to buy their B.S> software or services.