Intuit's TurboTax Lost 1 Million Free Users This Tax Season.

Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax and other finance software, reported higher-than-expected revenue for the fiscal third quarter, with a 12% increase to $6.74 billion. The company's focus on appealing to users with more complicated tax situations, through investments in live-assistance and artificial intelligence tools, seemed to pay off as the average TurboTax user spent 10% more on their filing compared to the previous year. However, Intuit lost 1 million free users this tax season, potentially due to some users opting for a limited IRS-run pilot for free tax software. Sales from the QuickBooks unit, aimed at small businesses and self-employed users, also increased by 18% to $2.4 billion. Intuit's loan-aggregating service, Credit Karma, will now be run by Joe Kauffman, with its founder, Kenneth Lin, leaving the company at the end of the year. Intuit expects Credit Karma sales to increase by about 2% to $1.66 billion for the full year. [Extracted from the article]