Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America’s Taxpayers

The IRS is moving to shut down its free tax filing program known as Direct File , with employees told to stall work on future iterations.

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax and the biggest player in tax preparation software, spent years tirelessly fighting any attempt by the government to bring the nightmarish American system of tax collection into line.

Intuit focused on carrying out two simultaneous objectives to ensure a maximum windfall: “stoking innovation in Silicon Valley while stifling it in Washington ” Since 2002 , Intuit and other tax preparation services have been legally required to offer a free private-sector version of what the government should have built and provided all along.

Intuit ’s playbook has been to create a booby-trapped version of its expensive software, with embedded code that once hid the free offering from search engines like Google .