TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns, produced by Intuit. TurboTax is a market leader in its product segment, competing with H&R Block Tax Software and TaxAct. TurboTax was developed by Michael A. Chipman of Chipsoft in 1984 and was sold to Intuit in 1993. The company has been subject of controversy over its political influence and deceptive business practices. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has lobbied extensively against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) creating its own online system of tax filing like those that exist in most other wealthy countries. Intuit is under investigation by multiple state attorneys general, as well as New York State Department of Financial Services. As part of an agreement with the IRS Free File program, TurboTax allowed individuals making less than $39,000 a year to use a free version of TurboTax; a 2019 ProPublica investigation revealed that TurboTax deliberately made this version hard to find, even through search engines, and that it deceptively steered individuals who search for the free version to TurboTax versions that cost money to use. TurboTax has tricked military service members to pay to use the filing software by creating and promoting a "military discount" and by making the free version hard to find when many service members are in fact eligible to use the software for free. Overview Intuit Consumer Tax Group is based in San Diego, California. Intuit Corporation, which owns Intuit, is headquartered in Mountain View, California. There are a number of different versions, including TurboTax Deluxe, TurboTax Premier, etc. TurboTax is available for both federal and state income tax returns. The software is designed to guide users through their tax returns step-by-step. The TurboTax software provides taxpayers additional support for their self-prepared returns by offering Audit Defense from TaxResources, Inc. Typically, TurboTax federal software is released late in the year and the state software is released mid-January to mid-February. TurboTax normally releases its new versions as soon as the IRS completes revisions to the forms and approves the TurboTax versions, usually late in the tax year. The process is similar for states that collect income taxes. In 2001, TurboTax saved financial institution passwords entered by users to servers at Intuit and the home computer. The programming error was reportedly fixed, but as of 2012 TurboTax offers no option to download a data file directly from the financial institution. Instead, it prompts