Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU), announced today that it has acquired SecureTax.com, the Rome, Georgia-based provider of Web-based tax preparation and filing services.
"The acquisition of SecureTax.com underscores Intuit's commitment to harnessing the Internet to revolutionize people's financial lives," said Bill Harris, president and CEO of Intuit. "With SecureTax.com, we will gain the economies of scale that enable us to continue to invest in the development and maintenance of our high-quality Web-based tax services and to provide these services to more people at even more competitive prices.
"In addition, Intuit gains access to a new group of potential customers who have demonstrated their willingness to do business on the Internet - customers who would likely be very interested in our other online financial services, including our Internet-based mortgage and insurance businesses."
With the introduction of its Web-based tax preparation services in 1997, Intuit began revolutionizing the way people prepare and file their personal income taxes by combining the speed, convenience and cost-effectiveness of the Internet with the power and ease of its desktop software. WebTurboTaxSM, which has the full power of Intuit's TurboTax® desktop software program, enables people to prepare and file their tax returns quickly, easily and securely on the Web, without installing or downloading software.
More than 240,000 Federal tax returns and 148,000 state tax returns were filed using WebTurboTax for tax year 1998 returns, a ten-fold increase in the online tax preparation business over the prior year. This includes more than 86,000 tax returns prepared and filed for free through the Quicken Tax Freedom program. Intuit established Quicken Tax Freedom as an ongoing community service initiative in August 1998 to offer individuals and households with annual incomes of $20,000 or less Web-based tax preparation and filing at no charge.
Terms of the SecureTax.com acquisition, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and a majority of SecureTax.com shareholders, were not disclosed. The acquisition closed on Aug. 9. All of SecureTax.com's operations will be folded into Intuit's tax division, which is based in San Diego.
