IntuitIntuit said it gained about 2 percent points of market share in the online software category during the year. TurboTax Online grew by 14 percent while the number of desktop units sold fell by 2 percent.
Results for rival H&R Block were hard to measure head-to-head with the Intuit numbers. The tax store chain had a 3.6 percent decrease in the number of tax returns it handled. The company said the drop was primarily due to the discontinuation of its free Federal 1040EZ offer of the 2013 season.
However, Block said revenue increased over a year ago because of "pricing changes, improved client mix, and online monetization efforts.
Overall, the number of returns efiled by tax professionals lagged last year's total all the way up to the latest report from the Internal Revenue Service. But the report for the tax season through April 18 show the number filed by paid preparers was up .7 percent over the period the period ended April 19, 2013.
This is the only time the category has been ahead of the 2013 totals as shown in the weekly reports. That percentage increase also matched the .7 percent rise in returns received. The number of returns received hit 131.17 million, up from 130.2 million a year earlier.
The results also showed continued gains for efiling. The number efiled for this year's reported period was 115.97 million, an increase of 2.9 percent from 112.67 million last year.
Self-prepared returns drove the growth with 45.98 million efiled for this year, up from 43.19 million. Tax professionals prepared just under 70 million efiled returns, compared to 69.47 million a year ago.
The size of the average refund increased, by the 1 percent rise as of April 18 was below the increases reported in the previous weekly reports from the IRS. This year's average of $2,686 compared to $2,659 in 2013.
