Liberty Tax Service is using CCH's CompleteTax for online preparation and offered a private label version of the CCH program during the last tax season. The company will utilize CompleteTax again during the 2012 season, according to documents filed by JTH Holding, the tax franchisor's parent company, in its registration for an initial public offering.
Liberty, based in Virginia Beach, Va., offers online preparation via an application called eSmartTax. The original product under that name was acquired in 2007. However, last year, the company decided that is was no longer economical to update that system and Liberty wrote off its remaining $5.6 million investment in eSmartTax.
There were 98,000 returns prepared online in 2011, down from 117,000 returns prepared via eSmartTax in 2010. Liberty expects to utilize its own software for the 2014 tax season. With the CCH agreement not extending past 2012, the SEC documents did not address the 2013 season.
The company believes that despite the small number of tax returns prepared via its system that there is a large demand in the market for online preparation. Liberty says that it should be able to generate significant growth if it can successfully integrate its retail and online products.
