TaxAct Holdings, Inc. is an American

tax preparation Tax preparation is the process of preparing tax returns, often income tax returns, often for a person other than the taxpayer, and generally for compensation. Tax preparation may be done by the taxpayer with or without the help of tax preparation so ...

software company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The company offers its own software package "TaxAct" to individual tax registers, companies and professional affiliates. The company was founded in 1998. Since 2012, TaxAct Holdings, Inc. is a subsidiary of

Blucora Infospace, Inc. was an American company that offered private label search engine, online directory, and provider of metadata feeds. The company's flagship metasearch site was Dogpile and its other notable consumer brands were WebCrawler and MetaC ...

History

TaxAct Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1998 as ''2nd Story Software'' by Lance Dunn, the former Vice President of software development at Parsons Technology. Later, Lance Dunn recruited Jerry McConnell and Alan Sperfslage as developers, and Cammie Greif as a marketer. In 2000, a cloud-based version of TaxAct software was released. In 2004,

TA Associates TA Associates, founded in 1968, is one of the early modern-era private equity firms in the United States. The firm leads buyouts and minority recapitalizations of profitable growth companies. TA invests across five industry groups: technology, hea ...

, a private equity firm based in Boston, acquired two-thirds of the company for $89 million. In October 2010,

H&R Block H&R Block, Inc., or H&R Block, is an American tax preparation company operating in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The company was founded in 1955 by brothers Henry W. Bloch and Richard Bloch. As of 2018, H&R Block operates approximat ...

said it would pay $287.5 million in cash to acquire the parent firm of TaxAct. In May 2011 the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

attempted to stop the acquisition in an antitrust lawsuit. In November 2011, a federal judge sided with the Justice Department, and both companies mutually terminated the contract. In January 2012, 2nd Story Software was sold to Seattle-based

(formerly Infospace, Inc.) for more than $287 million. In 2013, the name was officially changed to TaxAct Holdings, Inc. Subsequently, in October of the same year, TaxAct acquired Balance Financial, the company that specializes in personal finance tools and services. In 2018, former Intuit executive Curtis Campbell was appointed as the President of the company. TaxAct is a member of the

Free File Alliance The Free File Alliance is a group of tax preparation companies which operate a public-private partnership with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide free electronic tax filing services under the IRS Free File program to United States taxp ...

, a free federal tax preparation and electronic filing program for eligible individual taxpayers developed through a partnership between the IRS and a group of private sector tax software companies. In November 2022, private equity firm

Cinven Cinven is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States based corporat ...

agreed to acquire TaxAct for about $720 million. Cinven announced it would combine TaxAct's business with Drake Software, which it acquired the previous year, under a single holding company.

Product overview

TaxAct offers tax preparation software for individuals, small businesses, and tax professionals. They offer both online and download products, and have a mobile app available for iOS and Android. There are several online plans: Free, Deluxe, Premier, Self- Employed, Business, and Pro. TaxAct offers a free federal version for basic returns. In March 2018 TaxAct Online Freelancer Edition was awarded the title of "The best tax software for independent contractors" by

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

References

External links

* {{official, https://www.taxact.com/
TaxAct IRS Free File Program
Financial services companies established in 1998 Tax software of the United States 2012 mergers and acquisitions American corporate subsidiaries Announced mergers and acquisitions