Marisa Kendall reports:
In a suit filed Monday against Intuit Inc., plaintiffs lawyers claim lax security protections in the company’s TurboTax software are to blame for a recent spike in fraudulent tax returns.
Intuit didn’t take adequate steps to stop criminals from using TurboTax to steal customers’ personal information, file false returns on their behalf and cash in their refunds, according to the complaint. The suit, filed less than a week after this year’s tax filing deadline, comes after an uptick in fraudulent state returns briefly shut down TurboTax’s service and reportedly prompted an FBI investigation.
Read more on The Recorder.
With two former employees filing whistleblower statements with the SEC, Intuit may have its work cut out for it defending against this suit. Although it may be difficult to prove that Intuit was the cause of the tax refund fraud the two named plaintiffs experienced, I think there’s enough alleged to make any motion to dismiss for lack of standing a real uphill battle – particularly when there have been so many cases of tax refund fraud that states have linked to Intuit.