"

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 38 seconds

TaxAct Has Sluggish Season Start

TaxAct got off to a slow start for the current tax season, Chris Walters, CEO of parent company Blucora said this month. However, Walters said the product line typically lags the market but catches up as the season develops.

Through February 16, TaxAct return starts were down about 20 percent while efiles were down 11 percent from the 2019 season. Walters made the comment for the recent earnings webcast for the year ended December 31.

“We were a bit out of position to start the season,” he said. “We delayed our ramp up in marketing spend compared to last year.” Marketing problems included not having enough offers in the market. “We had fewer thing in place to test and scale than you would ideally want,” he said.

 For the year, the company reported net income of $48.1 million for 2019,  down 5 percent from $187.3 million for the prior year. Total revenue rose to $717.9 million, up 28 percent from $560.5 million the prior year. TaxAct revenue for 2019 was $210 million, which represented a 12-percent increase over 2018's $187.3  million. Wealth management revenue hit $508 million, rising from $373.2 million, a 36-percent jump. The increased wealth management revenue reflected the purchase of 1st. Global, which has been combined with the former HD Vest as Avantax.

Bob Scott
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind
Read 2493 times
Rate this item
(0 votes)

Visit other PMG Sites:

Template Settings

Color

For each color, the params below will give default values
Tomato Green Blue Cyan Dark_Red Dark_Blue

Body

Background Color
Text Color

Header

Background Color

Footer

Select menu
Google Font
Body Font-size
Body Font-family
Direction
PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.