400 TurboTax Users Are Wrongly Debited
About 400 users of the TurboTax software program got an unpleasant surprise last week: Their bank accounts were debited for hundreds of dollars in estimated tax payments that they didn’t intend to make.
The tax-preparation program has an option allowing taxpayers to electronically debit their bank accounts to pay federal income taxes. In about 400 cases, money was debited to pay 2004 taxes in advance by filers who said they had no intention of doing so, TurboTax spokesman Scott Gulbransen said.
Gulbransen said the San Diego company was working to recover the money for any affected customer, and expected to have a toll-free number available by today for customers to file claims. There is no word yet on what caused the problem, he said.
Kathy M. Kristof
