Edit: Meant to scope this comment solely to TurboTax. Replies correcting me are well deserved.
For consumer segment TurboTax still drives 30% of their entire revenue.
TurboTax
Mint
QuickBooks
Credit Karma
MailChimp
Like a lot of companies, tech and not, they use their power and resources to keep their position.
The difference is that their actual competitor is the government. But that's also a big part of why private healthcare is way too expensive in the US, for worse results than other places.
I think the government is more of an enabler, than a competitor. At least up until now.
As most of their revenue is from businesses who wouldn't easily be able to free-file, I wouldn't be surprised if Intuit's lobbying to prevent a free tax filing offering from the government was causing them more harm than good.
I always feel the need to point out that anger at this is misplaced. Intuit is a business lobbying on behalf of itself like countless other businesses do. If the result makes you upset, you should be upset at our political system and the politicians who are willing to sell out the country for whatever those lobbyists are pushing. It is those politicians who are supposed to prioritize the good of the country, not Intuit or their lobbyists.
We can be upset at lobbyists for pushing things that they know aren't in the best interests of consumers.
We can be upset at businesses for wanting to take advantage of consumers for their own gain.
All of these can be true at the same time.
Or, would you say something like "The outcomes are not perfect but that's how the system works and stays as fair as possible for everyone"?
And the idea that things are "as fair as possible for everyone" in this particular (read: Intuit) scenario is laughable at best.
This is an obvious Straw man[0] fallacy.
Intuit is a corporation engaged in lobbying efforts in order to retain and/or expand its market-share and not an individual needing representation in a criminal indictment.
Unless your position is that Intuit corporate officers should be criminally prosecuted, which, if that is the case, I apologize for my misunderstanding and can see your point.
Similarly, the system requires that anyone (including shareholders or employees of companies) be able to communicate with their political representatives about political policy. Even if sometimes this results in bad outcomes in specific situations.
The larger corporations, even more so.
But still, the Congressional office buildings are open to the public. Anyone can walk in and present their case. Yes, of course a senator cannot make as much time to meet with the millions of individual citizens as they can with the 500 individual Fortune 500 companies. I don’t think this defeats my argument. An individual citizen is objectively less important than a company involving tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens.
More broadly, a country whose politicians represent the interests of corporations is no longer a democracy. Democracy is for people. Corporations are not people. They are abstract legal entities wired to maximize profits. The fact that they are composed of people is immaterial, since they do many things contrary to the interests of those people all the time.
In point of fact, Intuit's lobbying in this very instance also negatively impacts their own employees.
Edit: A generic example to further drive the point home would be oil companies lobbying against environmental protections. Such moves only benefit the business and directly harm everyone, including their own employees.
Edit 2: And then there are all of the instances where businesses have lobbied against changes to labor laws, wages, etc. that would objectively improve the lives of their own employees...
Lobbyists are supposed to lobby on behalf of whoever pays them.
Businesses are supposed to advocate for the interest of themselves, their shareholders, and their employees. It would be verging on incompetence for a business to ignore a political debate that would effectively destroy the business overnight. Intuit lobbying on its behalf is our system working as intended. If you have a problem with that (which you should), your problem should be with the system and not Intuit.
Politicians are supposed to work for the betterment of their constituents and they clearly aren't in the case of tax prep. They deserve a majority of the blame above any other group because they are the ones failing to do their job.
There's no reason they shouldn't be able to find a way to remain a profitable business between most of what they own. To go above and beyond with such an anti-consumer perspective with regards to filing is absolutely egregious.
Put simply (or reductively, take your pick) - there's "advocating for the interest of their business" (nods head) and "advocating for the interest of their business" (shakes head).