The numbers are starting to roll in for the 2011 tax season and for Intuit's TurboTax and the Liberty Tax Service it was a good year. Liberty said it prepared 11 percent more returns through April 19 than it did last year. Meanwhile, Intuit hit the same 11 percent growth mark for sales of TurboTax with booming sales of the online product continuing to fuel overall increases.Liberty said that its system-wide revenue rose by 12 percent despite the problems facing the retail market, including the decision by the Internal Revenue Service not to provide the direct deposit debt indicator, a decision that has severely limited the availability of refund anticipation loans.
For Intuit, the 2-percent drop in sales of federal desktop TurboTax units was outpaced by18 percent year-over-year growth in sales of online units. The total was also crimped by a 5-percent drop in units moved via the TurboTax Free File Alliance. Online units sold rose to 15.76 million for this year's tax season, compared to 13.31 million in the 2010 season.
With the season closed, Intuit reiterated its forecast of 10 to 13-percent revenue growth for Consumer Tax revenue for its year ended July 31 with company growth predicted to rise by 8 to 11 percent.