[logiduck]

I just saw an TurboTax Ad where a guy was like "I Like free stuff" and then it said he was "happy to read the disclaimer" on TurboTax and see that "Roughly 37% of taxpayers qualify" which he looks thoughtfully in the distance and says "Thats me!"

I thought it was a funny commercial because 37% doesn't seem like a lot and Turbotax is portraying it as the average person will identify themselves as part of that 37% even though that is not too far off form just 1/3 people so a minority of people.

It was one of the few times I saw a company blatantly lean into the negatives in their fine print and just outright tell you its good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iijnr4UR4QE

[halJordan]

I agree on every level, but I'm compelled to remind you this is the America where wendy's (?) had to revert to a 1/4 pounder from a 1/3 pounder bc people thought they were getting less meat. And let's not forget the ever-present anti-education cohort that can't be convinced math is good even when you tell them it's how you calculate discounts or tips.

[sharps1]

I had to look this up as I didn’t grow up in the States. It was A&W.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr...

Crazy.

[cityofdelusion]

This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.

[ants_everywhere]

It's not that they're rare, it's that it legitimately is an easy error to make even if you understand it to be an error. Even people who work with equations every day will occasionally make careless mistakes like this. That's why mathematicians joke about how it's important to make an even number of sign errors.

To not make this mistake, you have to be able to call to mind that the map x -> 1/x reverses the inequality sign. That's a fairly abstract thing to remember especially if you haven't taken math for years. Yes you could draw it or write down the equation, or convert to decimal... But it's enough of a cognitive barrier that it doesn't surprise me that it would impact the behavior even of people who would answer correctly on a test.

Where it does get easy is if you work with the same set of fractions every day. For example, if you work in construction in the US you can probably quickly order the fractions commonly used for measurement, e.g. 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 3/4 etc. But 1/3 isn't one of these. Now that I think about it, they probably should have just chosen a fraction that you can find on a tape measure, like 3/8.

[mjevans]

3/8ths is 0.375 while 1/3rd is 0.333~ so it's even bigger while still larger than 1/4th (0.250), without being that much bigger.

3/8ths is a pretty good marketing point since all the numbers are bigger and it should be intuitive, plus you can more easily see that it's also 50% bigger than 1/4th => 2/8ths. The harder sell is the 'double whatever' being equal to 3 patties of the competitor.

[dcow]

For fractions like 1/3rd and 1/4th all it takes is common sense.

[tocs3]

I do not really like the term "common sense" as it is more like common experience. It is not hard to learn what fractions are but I do not think it is something that any one is born with and there is other notation to deal with fractions that work differently.

[Dalewyn]

I speak, and thus think, in both English and Japanese.

English says "1/4", or "1 over 4", or "1 quarter".

Japanese says "4 bun no 1", or the practical equivalent of saying "4 under 1" in English.

I consequently routinely say the numbers in reverse, confounding both myself and anyone around me before I realize my brain engaged in furious tentacle sex with the numbers.

[JadeNB]

> To not make this mistake, you have to be able to call to mind that the map x -> 1/x reverses the inequality sign. That's a fairly abstract thing to remember especially if you haven't taken math for years. Yes you could draw it or write down the equation, or convert to decimal...

You absolutely don't have to remember that x |-> 1/x is order reversing, and, for most people, shouldn't—you immediately give two or three other methods (I don't understand what "write down the equation" means) that are a much better way for the average person to check this.

[ants_everywhere]

Yes, but I was also speaking generally about fractions since that was the context of the comment I was responding to.

For example, consider: 1/1123 < 1/1092. Is that inequality true? The fastest way to check is to compare the denominators and adjust for the way division interacts with the inequality.

You can't really draw that pie chart quickly. You could write the equation down and multiply both sides though.

For 1/3 vs 1/4 yes you could draw it quickly. Or you could fill a glass 1/3 full of water and one 1/4 and compare them. But that's a pretty special case for small enough denominators.

[wharvle]

Anecdotally, it seems like working with fractions is where a lot of people fall off the math-train and never get back on.

… yes, that early.

[tialaramex]

Forty years ago we learned fractions with chocolate bars. A trustworthy child would be chosen to walk from the primary school to the local store (about 5 minutes walk for an adult, probably about two minutes for a child who was just given money by a responsible adult to buy chocolate) and bring back some chocolate, and then kids who raise their hand and give the correct answer to fraction questions get the fraction in its physical form as chocolate. What's half of this third of the bar? A sixth, and now because I knew that I get to eat 1/6 of a bar of chocolate, whereas the kid who enthusiastically answered that it's a quarter does not because that's wrong.

[ethbr1]

Fractions and negative numbers.

And, to be fair, they're the first math concepts that aren't intuitive.

Which IMHO leads to some people not studying, then feeling lost, then rationalizing their lack of effort as "I'm bad at math" or "Math is hard."

[Ferret7446]

Fractions are pretty intuitive. Is the pizza or cake analogy really that advanced?

[andyjohnson0]

I'm ok with fractions, but fractional and/or negative exponents always give me problems. I suspect it might be something to do with being taught that "multiplication is repeated addition, exponentiation is repeated multiplication". The model doesn't extend properly.

[wharvle]

I’ve seen a later fall-off point at factoring. Feels pointless (the motivations are… distant at best), tedious as hell, lots of guessing involved. “So much for math making sense, fuck this, guess I’m out.”

[ghaff]

It actually doesn't shock me that many people would be confused, especially if they didn't work with fractional quantities--e.g. for cooking--on a regular basis. Maybe it's a myth but it wouldn't surprise me if it weren't. And even if they've sort of internalized 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 without necessarily fully getting fractions--1/3 is something people encounter a lot less day to day.

[maximus-decimus]

I did teacher's college in Canada and the teacher who taught math said his biggest surprise when he moved from Europe to Canada is how terrible people were with fraction. I think he asked a barista to fill his cup to 2/3 and they couldn't do it because they didn't know what 2/3 was.

[kidsil]

I had the same shock but with reading. They're very much ahead in Europe in terms of reading levels.

[acdha]

I thought so as well but A&W backs that version:

https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractio...

[JadeNB]

> This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.

I literally had an argument with a room full of US university professors about whether or not 30% and 1/3 were the same thing.

[grigri907]

... and what was your answer?

[JadeNB]

> ... and what was your answer?

The correct one, that 30% is less than 1/3.

[MBCook]

Reportedly that’s the answer they got in focus groups when they tried to figure out why it failed.

4 > 3.

[ckw]

So why didn't they start selling 1/5 pounders?

[zo1]

Quarter and pounder rhymes so rolls off people's tongues.

Fifta-Pounder?

Fifth-Pounder?

Five-Pounder?

For all we know, marketing vetoed it cause they were lazy.

[happymellon]

Or perhaps all those people on here who defend US Standard measurements over metric and quote the fractions they know over decimals as an advantage are a minority?

Perhaps the average Joe would be better off with mm rather than 1/16" increments.

[reactordev]

Average Americans that frequent QSR’s don’t math so good.

[refurb]

Wait, did Snopes say this was real because of a news article that contain hearsay?

[a_random_canuck]

Do people think the NY Times reports hearsay as fact?

Here, straight from the horse's mouth:

https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractio...

[peteradio]

Based on a "focus group" discussion which are well known for selecting the brightest bunch of people who have nothing better to do than answer questions for 2 hours and get a coupon for free fries.

[m463]

  VINCENT: And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald's. And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

  JULES: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

  VINCENT: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't know what the f*** a Quarter Pounder is.

  JULES: Then what do they call it?

  VINCENT: They call it Royale with Cheese.

  JULES: Royale with Cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?

  VINCENT: Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.

Aside: a lot of tax preparation services, or their services that let you upload your data - the privacy policy says they can all "use" your financial info.

[nusl]

Personally I prefer Big Kahuna Burger

[foob]

It's also important to take any corporation's explanation for increasing their own margins with an extremely large grain of salt. I'm not doubting in the slightest that consumers had some confusion around the fractions, but all it would take for the company to revert their campaign is for the increase in sales to insufficiently offset the increase in their own costs. Blaming it on consumer stupidity afterwards washes their hands of any responsibility for backpedaling, and makes for a memorable and repeatable story that increases brand recognition while simultaneously painting them as heroically trying to offer more value for the same cost.

[filoleg]

You say “this is America”, but my mother (who grew up in USSR/Russia and was in her mid 30s at the time) was seriously asking middle-schooled me on multiple occasions whether 0.7 liters of milk was less than 0.55 liters. I don’t remember the exact numbers, i just remember that the smaller volume one had 2 digits past the decimal, and the larger one just had 1 digit.

And no, she wasn’t testing my knowledge, she was seriously confused, as she would ask me that even later in life. Mind you, she has a masters degree. She is in her early 50s right now, and she is fully of sound mind to this day, not senile or anything like that.

Imo, this type of silliness is rather common across many different places, but Americans just tend to own it and not be afraid of coming off silly (if that’s how they genuinely end up behaving in a given situation).

[purple_ferret]

Are they leaning in to it or are they forced to fit in the disclaimer?

Seems like the strategy of the ad is to repeat the word "Free" so much people don't remember the rest and to make it seem like the disclaimer is meaningless. Even with it, it's still free.

[chefandy]

Probably a bit of both. What the commenter is describing is a textbook social proof tactic. "Hey, I like free stuff and taxes make me feel like a bit of a doofus, just like that guy. And like that guy, I see myself as the clever sort of person that isn't fooled by fine print. That free Turbo Tax program sounds awfully useful and free for people like me!" And Intuit can also point to that commercial and say "how is this trying to disguise the proof?" and they'd be right. They're just also trying to make it feel free still by making it free for a relatable character.

Sounds hokey but that sort of shit has been the bread and butter of advertising since forever. A vanishingly small percentage of people are anywhere close to as rational as they think they are when buying things. Many of the most self-assuredly "skeptical, rational, well-researched consumer" types get totally snowed by the simplest marketing ideas because they're looking for sales bullshit they can empirically disprove, and most marketing is influencing people in a way that makes them think they came to the conclusion independently.

[Imz4di]

TurboTax is marketing to the kind of people who think getting big refunds is a good thing. That's generally people with lower incomes, so this fits that target.

[xivzgrev]

It is generally a good thing for folks who live paycheck to paycheck. Higher withholding forces more budgeting, and then they get a big paycheck once a year to pay off whatever

[burkaman]

People who live paycheck to paycheck are very good at budgeting because they have to do it to survive, they don't need any more pressure. If anything it's richer people that could use a little prodding, but either way we don't need the government to be withholding extra money from people it thinks might have bad habits.

> they get a big paycheck once a year to pay off whatever

If you have something big to pay off, you usually need to do it right away. You probably can't afford to wait however many months until you get your refund.

[chrisfinazzo]

In addition, I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of the people who are in the target demographic for this feature don't itemize - and never have a need for such practices.

A 1040 + W2 might the only equation these people need to solve for.

[whamlastxmas]

It’s almost certainly a bad thing to get a big refund because small budgetary changes can result in being unable to make ends meet which is extremely expensive in terms of fines

[8note]

If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck. It makes the budgeting more challenging to give the government and interest free loan.

However, giving the government an automatic loan means that a land lord cannot charge that much more in rent, and the owner does get to spend it eventually, rather than throwing it into a rent pit

[Sohcahtoa82]

> If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck

You are insultingly out of touch.

I'd like to paint you my picture of my life in 2009 and then compare it to today's numbers.

I was making $10.75/hr at a Subway, working ~38 hours/week. That's ~$1600 pretax, about $1,200 post-tax. Expenses:

Rent (Single-bedroom apartment): 650 car insurance: 75 water/sewage/garbage: 40 internet: 30 phone: 30 electricity: 50

That left me with $325/month to pay for gas (luckily I loved only ~3 miles from work, so that didn't cost me much), food, and entertainment. $10/day for food wasn't terrible, but it's not exactly steak and seafood, either. And remember, that $10/day is supposed to include entertainment as well. Honestly, it wasn't really THAT bad. Buuuuut....

Minimum wage increases have happened, but rent has gone up too. That job would now pay $15/hr, ($2280 for 38 hours pretax, ~$1710 post-tax), but the rent on that exact same unit is now $1,200/month.

Assuming all other bills remained the same (they wouldn't), I'd now be left with only $285/month for food. And with over 15 years of inflation, that $285 is worth significantly less.

At that point, even with budgeting, I'd still be living paycheck-to-paycheck. When wages don't keep up with the cost of living, you can't budget your way out of it.

To make it worse, that kind of living starts to take its toll on mental health. You feel like you're constantly drowning. That $4 coffee or the meal at Taco Bell will be your only source of real joy between each paycheck.

[Broken_Hippo]

If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck.

This is false. You simply aren't going to be able to budget your way into riches if you don't have enough money to go around. If you don't believe me, limit yourself to a minimum wage budget with no startup savings (and no borrowing off of others) and tell me how you are doing in a year... and then tell me how you'd survive the next few years on this. If minimum wage is too little, try setting the income at just over the mark you'd have for assistance.

Alternatively, if you have enough money to cover reasonable expenses, some fun, and have a little leftover, you don't really have to budget if you don't tend to spend lots. If I have enough money, I don't really have to budget.

[smrq]

Other replies are going hard on the initial assertion but missing the point, on which you're totally right. There is no reason where it's theoretically advantageous to give the government an interest free loan (overpay on your taxes) and get it back later in refund form, than to simply not do that and have the money in the meantime. Take the money you were giving to the government and put it in a savings account instead, and now you at least have minimal interest. (Hell, take it and put it in a safe and at least the government doesn't get to spend it on $thing-you-disagree-with-ideologically.) There's no difference in what you can do with untouchable money in the government's pocket vs. untouchable money in yours.

Whether you have the willpower to not touch it instead of increasing your food budget from $10 to $11 or whatever is a different story, and speaks to the mentality: if you never got the money in the first place, you can't be tempted to spend it.

[to11mtm]

I think there's some segment of folks that get snatched up into the weird false pretense that a modern day turbotax filing is less than (at worst, once one factors personal time cost in) a decent tax person even at one of the, shall we say, 'established turn and burns'[0]

That said, TurboTax did hit a specific level of 'eww' when I started seeing the refund option of a debit card (of course for some stupid fee that, if nothing else, provides some transparency to their kickback from the issuer).

I'm going to be doing what might be my last filing with them this year; it's easier for the purposes of history/other events but after that, it's gonna be my Fiancee's CPA.

Originally, I got 'started' when it was a desktop app only, and the user limit was very graceful, my parents and all of my siblings could benefit from that one yearly purchase...

Come to think of it, we should probably capture that date in the historical timeline of Enshittification.

And, yaknow, I'll ask my dad this weekend how he's doing his taxes this year. I'm honestly curious if he's finally fed up with their antics too... (It's a high bar; in the past he learned the basics of virtual machines to use some of his old-school software/tools, it's a beautiful level of curmudgeonry. OTOH my siblings have good CPAs.)

[0] - Not to be confused with some of the weird 'chop shop' Tax places I have seen around me in the past, sort of 'pop-ups' with a statue of liberty wearing person or 'wacky inflatable arm-flailing tube-man' to help drive business in.

[RajT88]

If you have simple taxes, FreeTaxUsa.com.

Not shady, neither is it free, but about as close as you can get AFAIK for online filing. For what it is (a web forms app, with careful explainers), it's pretty good!

I've used tax pros and honestly, my finances are not complex enough to get a good benefit off the extra cost. I used H&R block one year, and really didn't think they knew any more about tax filing than I did. They got confused at all the same line items I did.

[to11mtm]

> I used H&R block one year, and really didn't think they knew any more about tax filing than I did. They got confused at all the same line items I did.

I mean... H&R Block is in some ways the Firestone of accounting. Sometimes there's a diamond in the rough of their 'regular' workers [0] but you never know what you're gonna get unless you happen to wind up in the right circumstances where you can build trust with one of their people that happens to stick [1]

[0] - Had a friend who could get one of H&R Block's folks to do the whole deed for 'non complicated'[2] starting with a pile of receipts/medical bills/etc and 90$ for people they liked, and yes they'd do their proper professional duty in the process. Frankly given the time investment that's a steal.

[1] - In my case, it was a guy at a local shop who had his WRX parked outside every time that was some level of manager. Always happy to give proper treatment, never afraid to say 'take it to the dealer' (i.e. more qualified people) if it was out of their comfort zone. Compare and contrast to a different shop, where after some 'changes' managed to mess up an oil change, and the 'fix' for the bad oil change... [3]

[2] - I want to be clear that non-complicated is not the trivial 'oh sure okay' here, they may or may not have had a hand in pointing out said friend's parent was doing some... 'minor some student loan fraud'. But if you had additional properties or other weird situations... If I remember they had their own sort of menu and everything. Very smartly done.

[3] - I had to re-replace a <6 month old timing belt in the process, but frankly the engine needs a rebuild now, it lost 2-5MPG from that one incident.

[wardedVibe]

unrelated, I bet you really like David Foster Wallace

[zerocrates]

Yeah this ad has been running a lot.

I was pretty sure when first seeing it that they'd already gotten in trouble for their last ads that used the word "free" a lot, and this was a very direct response to that... I guess that's just the final decision that's being reported on here.

[xyst]

How this ad got green lit, distributed to various mediums (tv ads, yt channel, social media), and nobody saying “wait, this is terrible” is unfathomable to me.

[thegrim33]

Well, I mean, that extends to pretty much all advertising nowadays. It's all completely awful. A while back I saw a CGI cookie hop up on a table and twerk its animated cookie ass at the camera to rap music, on public television, in order to sell cookies. How many people were involved in making something like that, and all agreed that this was how they wanted to sell cookies. The same mentalities are built in to most companies now, it's all downhill from here.

[CatWChainsaw]

Just remember all the other tone-deaf commercials that have ever been released. They all passed teams of people saying "this is a great idea."

[supertrope]

This is distressingly common in marketing. "0% APR financing for well qualified buyers." Where well qualified means 720 FICO score, lower debt to income, and lower payment to income ratios. These details are not even in the fine print of the ad. Then there's ads that show a picture of the high end version of a product with text "starting from <low price>!" (that corresponds to the base model).

[garciasn]

Less than a 720 FICO score is “fair” with 720 being “good”. I’m sorry but “fair” doesn’t make you a well-qualified buyer IMO, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

[supertrope]

It's FICO & DTI & PTI. None of this is defined in the ad not even the fine print. I'm well aware that 700 is around the 50th percentile.

[diogenescynic]

I saw the exact same ad today.

[llacb47]

That is… unsettling.