Justin Elliott

Justin Elliott is an American journalist. He has worked with ProPublica since 2012 where he writes about business and economics. His work on TurboTax maker Intuit won a Gerald Loeb Award for business journalism. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in history and classics.

Elliott has been reporting on free filing of income tax returns with the IRS for nine years.

Quotes

 * I think it's an interesting story of privatization of government services and how that's played out over time. The history here is 20 years ago during the George W. Bush administration, the IRS was actually considering offering its own official tax prep service. And the private tax prep industry didn't want that to happen. And we ended up with this sort of strange hybrid system that we're living in today.
 * How you can file your taxes online for free (March 19, 2022) interview with Scott Simon of NPR


 * this billionaire businessman, Harlan Crow, flew Clarence Thomas to Indonesia a few years ago on his private jet. They were met there by his very large yacht, and they went on vacation together for about nine days. You know, this is a vacation - not a normal vacation. This could cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the striking thing about it is that Justice Thomas didn't report any of these gifts on his annual financial disclosure, where judges are supposed to report this sort of thing, which, you know, ethics lawyers told us that that could be a violation of the federal law.
 * ProPublica investigates luxury vacations gifted to Supreme Court Justice Thomas (April 6, 2023)


 * Millions of Americans will receive money from Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, as part of a $141 million settlement between the Silicon Valley company and all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
 * The company will send up to $90 apiece to more than 4 million people who paid for TurboTax software even though they were eligible to receive it for free.
 * Intuit Will Pay Millions to Customers Tricked Into Paying for TurboTax (May 4, 1:40 p.m. EDT)