As further proof that more and more Americans are choosing the ease and convenience of the Internet to do their taxes, e-finance leader Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) announced that its Quicken® TurboTax® for the WebSM service today filed its one-millionth completed federal income tax return. This milestone comes in record time - almost two months earlier than last year when the millionth return was filed on April 10, 2000.
Megan McNally of Bremerton, WA was the one-millionth taxpayer to complete a federal tax return on TurboTax for the Web. "This is the second year in a row that I used TurboTax for the Web to prepare my taxes," said McNally. "Last year, as a student, I used the 1040EZ form, but this year, my return was considerably more complicated. In both cases, TurboTax made filing fast and easy and this year, I know it helped me catch some deductions I would have missed on my own. It's a fantastic benefit to be able to do my taxes online."
In addition to spectacular growth of online tax preparation, more than 4.5 million federal and state tax returns have already been filed electronically through Intuit's leading tax preparation and filing products and Web-based service.
"As expected, online tax preparation and e-filing are off to a strong start this year," said Bob Meighan, vice president of Intuit's Consumer Tax Group. "Now more than ever, consumers are embracing Intuit solutions that make difficult and time-consuming tasks, like doing taxes, faster, easier and hassle-free. TurboTax for the Web is far and away the easiest online tax preparation and e-filing solution and the millions of taxpayers who will use the service this year are living proof that online tax preparation has come of age."
According to Forrester Research, which projects that six million households will prepare their tax returns online in 2001, the growing popularity of the Internet for financial transactions and Intuit's innovation of the automated tax return (ATR) feature that pre-populates tax forms with selected tax data, are driving growth in Web-based tax preparation.
The Automated Tax Return, which imports common tax information - wages, interest, dividends and stock transactions - from participating companies directly into TurboTax, is living up to its promise of slashing data entry time and proving to be a windfall for taxpayers who had stock transactions last year. To date, participating financial institutions have had more than 150,000 unique requests for 1099s for import into TurboTax and more than 240 employers, representing approximately half a million employees, are participating in the W-2 import.
"The rapid adoption of this innovative feature is a clear indication of the value the Automated Tax Return feature delivers to both taxpayers and our participating partners," Meighan said. "With ATR, we've raised the bar and shown taxpayers that there is a better way. Next year, we'll roll out even broader functionality with even more partners - ensuring that a growing number of consumers will benefit from our vision of a 10-minute tax return."
About Quicken TurboTax
Quicken TurboTax is the #1-selling tax preparation software program, with approximately 80% retail revenue share this tax season, according to PC Data. Its web-based counterpart, TurboTax for the WebSM, is the most popular site for online tax preparation and filing services. In addition, Intuit offers TurboTax Home & Business, designed for the sole proprietor. The Automated Tax Return feature is included at no additional charge in all of these versions of TurboTax. With 17 years of personal finance expertise, the TurboTax family of products saves time and money for more than 13 million Americans each year.
