Online Filing Volume

Introduction

On this page we answer the question, “should brick-and-mortar tax practices fear competition from tax preparation web sites?” This question is relevant to a wide variety of tax preparation providers, including large accounting firms, small tax offices, and franchise chains. Further, changing consumer behavior affects vendors ancillary to tax preparation, such as bank product providers and software developers.

We find that the a great many consumers use online filing but growth is slow, and perhaps stagnant. Self-service tax preparation web sites have existed for about 20 years. Over these two decades some consumers who previously hired a tax preparer have moved to online filing, but online filing has not precipitated mass closures of in-person locations. We believe, at this point, consumer preferences are settled, thus, the existence of online filing is unlikely to decrease substantially the demand for in-person assistance.

Online Filing Market Share by Company

Referring to the graph below, online filing enjoyed a surge in popularity in 2020, perhaps driven by public health concerns around the coronavirus pandemic. Online filing got another boost in 2022 as people who otherwise weren’t required to file a return needed to do so in order to receive economic assistance funds from the government. Since 2024 online filing has remained steady, but remains substantially above 2019’s total.

^{These filing figures are per calendar year and not per tax year. For example, the vast majority of the returns filed in 2020 were 2019 returns.}

Some online platforms have won substantial market share while others languish in relative obscurity. Intuit’s flagship TurboTax product has become a genericized trademark for online tax filing, and with good reason: Intuit files as many returns as all the other web sites combined! H&R Block, the well-known brick-and-mortar chain, has developed a very capable self-service web site, and consumers are using it. Tax Hawk is the dark horse of the group, steadily gaining market share, perhaps at Block’s expense.

Brick-and-Mortar Firms Transitioning to Online Tax Filing

As this article’s aim is to consider online filing with respect to the demand for in-person tax preparation, let’s look at how companies who historically served the in-person market are doing with their online efforts. For this, let’s consider a new graph.

^{Hover over each dot to see filing totals and market share.}

Brick-and-Mortar Tax Stores

Of the nationwide franchise chains only Block has been even moderately successful at preparing itself for a possible large shift to online filing. For years their website garnered consistent market share. Since 2024, however, Block’s site seems to be losing ground to Tax Hawk.

Jackson Hewitt’s share of online filing is small, but growing steadily. As of the first half of 2026, Jackson Hewitt processed twice as many returns as it did in all of 2025!

Liberty Tax’s online efforts languished for years, but, like Jackson Hewitt, partial-year filings for 2026 are already double 2025’s filings.

Tax Software Companies

Like brick-and-mortar stores, professional tax software vendors potentially face disruptions from a large consumer migration to self-service filing. Like retail tax practices, some software companies have diversified to online retail offerings. Three professional tax software companies have built consumer web sites: Drake Software, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer. Drake created 1040.com, TaxAct and TaxSlayer operate retail sites under the same brand name as their professional products.

The TaxAct and TaxSlayer sites file annually a fair amount of returns – about 4 million and 3 million respectively. These are respectable numbers but they don’t seem to be growing over time.

Of the software companies’ retail sites 1040.com has by far the smallest volume. But it has, in percentage terms, been growing quickly over the last 3 years.

CashApp

CaseApp’s presence as a significant originator of e-filed returns deserves mention. CashApp’s tax preparation offering is adjacent to the company’s primary business of money transfers. We at ERO Watch are going to keep a close eye on CashApp. CashApp is the first company to develop their tax preparation site first and primarily for mobile users.

There is a substantial cohort of people who depend on cell phones for most – if not all – of their Internet access and web banking activity. Up to this point online filers have been mainly people with access to computers. We would like to see vigorous effort from money app developers to develop tax apps aimed at smartphone-only consumers. We feel that capturing phone-only users has the greatest potential for converting new consumers to online filing.

While we’re excited about activity in the app-based tax filing market, CashApp’s filing volume varies little from year to year.

Conclusions

In-person tax preparation practices, and their specialized vendors, face little existential threat from online self-filing. Years ago consumers selected their preferred modality, and the proportion of online self-prepared versus professionally prepared filing has remained steady.

Of the three major tax preparation chains, all of their sites are probably good, but only Block as won substantial market share in the online space. Thus, Block is in much better position should market conditions necessitate migration to a primarily online business model.

Of the tax software companies who also proffer consumer web sites, all appear to have mastered developing and administering web sites, but TaxSlayer and TaxAct are the ones who have built up substantial brand recognition and loyalty, giving them a head start in the event of a new massive to online filing.

As consumer preferences are well-established tax professionals and tax product vendors should focus on their historic businesses and develop consumer web sites only as a secondary activity.