Tax Business Knowledge Base

A synthesized, sourced reference for the tax-preparation business — the industry, competitors, economics, consumers, data, regulation, and how AI is reshaping it — with a focus on Intuit/TurboTax and the Consumer Group.

Status: Seed — 2026-07-09
Purpose: Role credibility — become genuinely fluent in the tax business for the Intuit Consumer Group role and conversations with CG leadership.
Analysis stance: Balanced (scenarios and options, not a single argued thesis). Facts are sourced; interpretation is labeled Analysis.
Source index: research/SOURCE_INDEX.md
Router (which file for which task): AGENTS.md

Scope note: this is a business/industry knowledge base, not personal tax advice. The personal 401K_DECISION_MATRIX.md at the repo root is unrelated.

The big picture in 10 facts

TurboTax owns ~60% of the US tax-software market (down ~1 pt YoY) — dominant, but not unthreatened. [S2]
~146M individual returns are filed a year; ~2/3 of adults use a prep service, ~1/3 DIY. [S4][S6]
The business is radically seasonal — most revenue is earned Jan–Apr, against hard IRS deadlines.
Assisted (TurboTax Live) is the growth engine — new assisted customers up ~29% in Q3 FY26. [S2]
Consumer Group ≈ $6B revenue (TurboTax + Credit Karma), one of Intuit's largest segments.
IRS Direct File is dead for FY2026 — the government free-file threat receded after industry lobbying. [S8][S9]
Intuit's long reputational battle over "free" produced an FTC case, a $141M state settlement, and the ProPublica "TurboTax Trap" series. [S10][S11][S17]
The historic moat was data + the tax-knowledge engine; general-purpose LLMs now threaten to commoditize both. [S14]
Intuit cut ~17% of staff (~3,000 roles) to refocus on AI; the stock fell ~42% YTD on disruption fears. [S14]
Intuit's counter is a connected "prosperity ecosystem" (TurboTax ↔ Credit Karma ↔ QuickBooks ↔ Credit Karma Money ↔ Mailchimp) plus expert-in-the-loop AI (Intuit Assist + VEP). [S15][S16]

Reading order

Start with 03 (why tax is a different business) — it frames everything. Then 02 (competitors), 05 (business model), and 08 (assisted model) for the commercial core. 06 (data), 10 (regulation), and 11 (AI) are the strategic tension. 01 (history), 04 (consumers), 07 (how software works), and 09 (ecosystem) fill in the substance.

#	File	What it covers
01	`01-history-and-how-we-got-here.md`	Intuit/TurboTax origins + timeline
02	`02-industry-landscape-and-competitors.md`	Market structure, share, competitors
03	`03-why-tax-is-a-different-business.md`	Structural traits + the seasonal operating rhythm
04	`04-consumers-and-segments.md`	Filers, segments, jobs-to-be-done
05	`05-business-model-economics-and-kpis.md`	Pricing, funnel, attach, the KPIs
06	`06-the-data-dimension.md`	Data captured, the moat, LLM threat
07	`07-how-tax-software-works.md`	E-file/MeF, forms cycle, fraud/security
08	`08-the-assisted-expert-model.md`	TurboTax Live, VEP, expert labor
09	`09-the-intuit-ecosystem-and-cross-sell.md`	The prosperity-ecosystem flywheel
10	`10-regulation-reputation-and-political-economy.md`	FTC, Direct File, ProPublica, lobbying
11	`11-ai-disruption-and-intuit-outlook.md`	The AI threat + Intuit's response + scenarios

Applied layer (your own thinking, not reference):

| — | PROGRAM_OPPORTUNITIES.md | PM/product opportunities spotted while learning — a living log (starts with PO-1: the annual tax-code change cycle). Hypotheses to pressure-test, not sourced fact. |

Reference aids:

| — | GLOSSARY.md | Acronym/term lookups: ARPU/ARPR, attach, CAC, LTV, MeF, ATS, EFIN, WISP, VEP, GenOS, and more |

Note on freshness: market share, return counts, pricing, and stock figures are seasonal/volatile — re-validate before citing externally (harvest date 2026-07-09).

01-history-and-how-we-got-here →