In brief
The rebuilt product will charge $0 for federal filing and a flat $15 for a state return.
It will use Credit Karma financial data, document imports, and AI tools to reduce manual entry.
TurboTax will keep its free edition, but Intuit is positioning that brand more heavily around live support.
Credit Karma Tax is back. But this is not Intuit digging an old product out of storage.
The company says it built a new version from the ground up. Federal filing will cost $0, a state return will cost $15, and paid expert help will sit on top as an option.
The bigger story is how Intuit is splitting the market. Credit Karma gets the younger do-it-yourself filer. TurboTax keeps moving toward live human help.
A cheap return with more data behind it
Credit Karma already sees parts of a member's financial life, including income, credit, and cash flow. The tax product is designed to use that information to prefill parts of the return and build a document checklist.
Users can photograph forms or import them from employers and financial institutions. The system is also meant to handle stock sales, financial transactions, and crypto activity.
That makes the $0 federal price more interesting. Intuit is not limiting the pitch to the simplest wage-only return. It wants filers who may have more moving parts but still refuse to pay a large preparation fee.
AI becomes the support desk
The product includes an AI-driven expert chat tool. Intuit also plans agents that explain return outcomes, catch errors, and help users decide what to do with a refund.
Other Credit Karma tools will suggest debt paydown plans, savings moves, investments, and paycheck allocations. In other words, tax filing becomes another doorway into a year-round financial app.
The promise is convenience. The risk is misplaced confidence. A smooth explanation can feel authoritative even when a taxpayer's facts need professional judgment.
TurboTax is moving up the service ladder
TurboTax is not disappearing, and its free edition is staying. But live support now produces more than half of the platform's revenue, and Intuit plans to keep leaning into that business.
Credit Karma Tax gives the company a lower-priced front door. TurboTax can focus more on customers willing to pay for help, review, or preparation.
That is a classic product ladder. Start with a low-cost tool, learn what the customer needs, then sell support when the situation gets harder.
The old antitrust story still matters
Credit Karma had offered tax filing before Intuit bought the company for $7.1 billion in 2020. The Justice Department required the old tax business to be sold because it had become a meaningful competitor to TurboTax.
Square bought those assets for $50 million and folded them into Cash App Taxes.
Intuit says the new Credit Karma Tax is a distinct product built on its own platform. That distinction matters because the old divestiture was designed to preserve competition in do-it-yourself tax software.
The paid extras tell the rest of the story
The core federal return is free and the state return is $15. Customers can pay for an Expert Support Bundle with audit defense, identity protection, live product help, and the option to pay the state fee from the refund.
An expert final review will also be available. Eligible customers with a Credit Karma Checking account may receive refunds early, and Intuit plans a refund advance of up to $4,000 with no loan fee and 0% APR.
For tax professionals, the lesson is not that software replaced advice. It is that software keeps getting better at selling the simple parts cheaply, then charging when confidence runs out.
