Intuit Incorporated announced a twenty percent rise in quarterly profits, as demand for their TurboTax Software grows. However,the firm appeared to show a loss on it’s fourth-quarter profit income and profit outlook. Intuit states it expects an overall loss of ten to twelve cents a share on an estimated income of between $683 million to $713 million for the fourth quarter.
The company initially forecast an estimated loss of between two and four cents a share on an income between $710 million to $720 million.
The company is based in Mountain View, California and the majority of its revenue is earned in the second and third quarters, when people invest in TurboTax Software during the run-up to the tax season.
The tax-filing season was later this year, hence the demand for TurboTax Software was delayed. Intuit relied on the third quarter to boost their yearly income.
Intuit’s net income amounted to $984 million or $3.39 a share, during the third quarter ending April 30, in comparison to $822 million and $2.71 a share in the previous financial year. Overall, income rose by around fourteen percent to $2.39 billion.
The company announced TurboTax Software sales were up, as many citizens opted to file TurboTax online.
On December 3, 2013, Intuit Inc announced that its’ new TurboTax ItsDeductible app for iPhone had become available. This app is aimed at helping the estimated seventy-five percent of US citizens who donate to charity, convert their goodwill into sizable tax deductions. This app is free of charge and offered on the iPhone with iOS7 app store.
The Turbo Tax online program itself is very popular. When combined with the portability and convenience of a mobile device, the TurboTax ItsDeductible app allows people to easily monitor their charitable donations. This app features valuations for over ten thousand commonly donated items, like toys, clothing, sporting goods, games, appliances, household products and more.
Although most taxpayers are aware that non cash donations might be tax deductible, they do not always value the goods they donate to charity correctly. Usually, this is because they have just guessed the value randomly. For example, sometimes, bags of clothes are donated with $50.00 valuations, when the real value is over $300.00.
Prior to leaving a donation facility, people can easily and quickly input their donated goods into TurboTax ItsDeductible. Then, the app will automatically make a fair market valuation, based on guidelines by the Internal Revenue Service. This ensures that users receive the full deductions they are entitled to on their tax returns. The app uses location sensitive technology to quickly capture the address of the charity, for tax record keeping. All philanthropists should monitor their donations with this app, to be properly rewarded for their generosity.
Welcome to the November 19, 2013 edition of Tax Carnival Ecstasy. We start this carnival with an article from Bill Smith on filing back taxes. We also have a really good story on filing your taxes after the October 15th deadline has passed for the year. And finally, Intuit is helping those looking for advice on completing their Affordable Care applications. Hope you bookmark, share, tweet, and like on Facebook the Tax Carnival Ecstasy.
filing
Bill Smith presents How To File Back Taxes posted at 2011 Tax, saying, “All people with income need to file taxes yearly. If you have missed one or more years in the past ten, now is the time to file back taxes.”
Ward Carson cfp presents Women and Retirement – The Happy 401k posted at The Happy 401k, saying, “Ward Carson is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. He is the owner of The Happy401k.com and the Managing Partner of Cambridge Financial & Insurance Group. Cambridge provides counsel to corporate clients in the areas of qualified retirement plans and executive/employee benefits. Through TheHappy401k.com, Ward shares valuable insight for sponsors and participants of corporate retirement plans”
John Schmoll presents Can You Earn Too Much to Be Good With Money? posted at Frugal Rules, saying, “A common myth is that the higher your income is the better you are with money. This problem with this myth is that it overlooks the fact that if you spend a lot while making a good salary you’ll have nothing to show for it. The path to growing wealth, however, is made up of being frugal with your spending and having your money work for you as opposed to being a slave to it.”
Bill Smith presents Filing Taxes In 2013 After October 15 posted at 2013 Taxes, saying, “If you were unable to pay your taxes earlier in the year, you might have been dreading the October 15th deadline for your deadline extension.”
tips
Lee Hadnum presents Where are the tax havens? posted at UK Tax Planning Blog.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of tax carnival ecstasy using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Wieden & Kennedy is largely known for some of the most creative and bold works in recent times in advertising campaigns for brands like Nike and Coca Cola as well as Proctor and Gamble. Recently, in a move that was totally unforeseen, the company was chosen to handle purchasing of media for Turbo Tax a company owned by Intuit.
As announced by a spokesperson, the tax software specialist W&K is now in charge of all media buying for TurboTax a job that was initially handled by the Initiative. This is going to be a joint affair. The company’s New York office will manage purchasing, while the Portland HQ will manage the media planning aspect of this massive account. The Initiative has been unavailable for comment.
Intuit logo (Photo credit: Dell’s Official Flickr Page)
What makes this move so significant is that by and large media buying is a job that is handled by large, specialized organizations whose work includes being able to give their clients much better insights and rates considering the scale that they work on. However, with this particular move, it could be the beginning of times when scale is trumped by integration, especially with a client like TurboTax a Super Bowl advertiser. This may herald the beginning of a trend that is long talked about in the advertising world– the integration of marketing communications in terms of media and creativity.
This move by Turbo Tax was decided after an internal review process with undisclosed participants. The media and the creative reviews were done separately, but the results are what led to the move to consolidate it all.
New Intuit’s TurboTax CPA Select connects small businesses with CPAs
Intuit has announced a new online service known as TurboTax CPA Select, that links small businesses who need to file their taxes with a CPA.
The inventor of TurboTax, Quicken, and Quickbooks, Intuit has come out with a great new tax preparation and filing service right on schedule for the approaching tax season. The program, TurboTax CPA Select is intended to assign small businesses who need tax help to a CPA. These business owners can know have an accurate estimate of the cost of their tax preparation before they have to file them.
Brian Crofts, Group Product Manager of Intuit, states that with CPA Select our focus is to be able to handle business on both the customer and CPA side, giving customers what they need and want.”
The new service was introduced by Intuit on January 23 at the Small Business VCon and again on January 29 at Intuit’s Innovation Gallery Walk. The Gallery Walk was held at the Mountain View headquarters of Intuit from 4-8 p.m. Pacific Time and gave them a chance to show off their latest products/services. The CEO and other leaders of Intuit shared their predictions about technology as well.
TurboTax CPA Selects lets users search a group of selected CPAs. The CPAs have profiles of themselves with a photo, client reviews, star ratings, and educational and professional information. Once a small business picks a CPA, they simply upload and submit their tax return from the prior year along with any other necessary documents such as 1099s and W-2s. Within 24 hours, the selected CPA will give that business an estimate based on what they have submitted. Users can then accept or deny the estimate. If it gets accepts, the CPA prepares and files the tax return.
This online service is not only for small businesses, but also for individuals. Users can sign up by filling out the registration form or using the link to their Facebook page. Requirement 7216 asks users to give consent to submit documents by having them type their full name, their spouse, and the date. TurboTax CPA Select is simple for messaging the CPA directly or to chat or message Intuit customer service.
Crofts states that he wants the service to be convenient and easy to use for individuals and businesses, even if they only need one-time help with their taxes.
CPAs that belong to the TurboTax CPA Select plan can link their profile to their social media sites and manage everything from their dashboard. They are also able to send messages to their clients directly.
Plans starting at just $89.95 are now available. Mint.com users may be able to use CPA Select since it is on their advice list of services that can save them money.
Intuit Inc.’s INTU’s fiscal first quarter loss narrowed to a margin of 1.23% as it acquired Demandforce and recently sold assets, while posting improvements in its small business area.
In this current quarter, predictions showed an adjusted profit of 43 cents up from 40 cents. The revenue was projected to increase from $1.02 billion to $1.04 billion. According to Thomson Reuters, the profits were expected to be an estimated 59 cents and revenue, $1.1 billion.
Image via CrunchBase
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, has changed the services it provides to small business and plans to create other higher-margin online services including managing customer relations.
Intuit also plans to expand globally and is widening its scope to create online tools for QuickBooks which would give customers social media access to improve customer service. Demandforce was acquired for $423.5 million for the purpose of providing mobile, social tools and email to assist small businesses with automating their communications and marketing.
When the quarter ended on October 31, Intuit’s loss was listed at $19 million or six cents per share. The previous year’s loss at the same date was around $64 million or just about 21 cents per share. The latest period shows income of 11 cents per share which comes from operations that were discontinued; whereas there was a loss of two cents per share one year ago. After stock-based compensation and other payouts are calculated, the loss from the continued operations was three cents per share. The previous year’s loss was eight cents per share. Revenue climbed 13% to $647 million.
In August, Intuit had forecasted a loss adjusted from six to seven cents per share and revenue adjusted from $630 million to $640 million.
The small business segment showed revenue increase from 18% to 21% in Intuit’s payments area. Demandforce show growth of 60% in its subscriptions and subscribers for QuickBooks Online increased 29%. Overall, these growths contributed to a 20% increase in Intuit’s financial management solutions business.
The TurboTax earnings showed a revenue drop of $36 million down from $41 million one year ago, since customers filed less extended returns during the 2011 tax year compared to one year ago.
The shares closed at $58.77 on Thursday and dropped by 17 cents after a few hours. For this year, the stock has increased by 12%.
