Blucora, the parent of TaxAct, saw a double-digit drop in efiles for the recently ended tax season. But the company still managed to grow its tax business revenue for the first quarter ended March 31, primarily through price increases. Blucora also had a 7-percent rise in quarterly wealth management revenue—the H.D. Vest business.

The Internal Revenue Service and many industry observers expected returns filed this year would exceed 2016 totals by 1 percent. Instead, the total fell .7-percent short as a last minute surge of 135.6 million returns did not overcome the gap between this year through April 21 and last year's corresponding period as efiled returns from paid professionals dropped but the self-prepared total rose slightly.

H&R Block told customers to get taxes won, not done. But for tax season 2017 the winner was again Intuit which saw increased sales of its TurboTax units while the two publicly held tax store chains, Block and Liberty Tax Services, reported declines year-over-year for the season through 22.