The numbers reflect businesses at Liberty offices and online. CEO John Hewitt said it was too early to make any predictions about the full season and also noted that last year some forms were not available until early March.

Offices have prepared 931,000 returns in the tax reason reporting period, an increase of 5.8 percent over a year earlier. The number of online returns prepared rose by 13 percent to 75,000.

JTH noted the store decline reflects the fact that Liberty was unable to sell franchises during its second quarter while it was restating some of its financial results.