If you haven't already filed your taxes, you're probably considering TurboTax, the widely used software that makes filing a return easy for our nation of babies and dimwits. Consider an alternative: according to two former high-ranking employees, the company ignored rampant refund theft because it could take a cut.
In a press release yesterday, financial software company Intuit announced a realignment, and by realignment, they mean laying off seven percent of the company's workforce — mostly in finance, according to a tipster. The press release went out well before individual employees were notified of their status, which can't have helped morale with everyone thinking they might get a pink slip. The company also revised earnings expectations downward. How did Wall Street react? After a brief boost Wednesday morning, the company's share price was right back to the level before the layoff announcement. Yahoo may be using the word reorganization instead of realignment, but in the end it will mean the same thing.(Photo by Peter Kazanjy)
An Intuit tipster tells us that management gathered up the peons for a "a rah rah speech about making us the most admired company that everyone wants to work for," yesterday. Then they unveiled the new logo, pictured. "Needless to say no one in the Valley seemed to pay attention." Sure, we're watching Intuit! Just the other day we reported that instead of keeping cash or investing in a more liquid instrument, Intuit owns about $328 million in auction-rate securities — you know, the kind no one's willing to buy.
Instead of holding onto cash, tech firms such as Monster, Palm, Intuit, EarthLink and MetroPCS in recent years bought something called auction-rate securities. Basically — very basically — that means these companies loaned out around $856 million because banks told them they'd earn more than they would just holding on to the cash. Only thing is now, with the credit markets being what they are — crappy — no one else wants to buy the rights to collect on those loans. So all that cash is sewn up in paper. That could soon hurt because the companies are going to need that cash eventually, an exec at one Wall Street trading firm told the WSJ. And when they do, he said, they should expect "a steep loss."
It's odd, sometimes, the contortions reporters will go through to make a story out of nothing — especially when they miss the real one. Take, for example, this report from IDG News about the planned departure of Intuit CEO Steve Bennett. The subhead of the article: "Intuit chief executive's resignation is not tied to April tax database snafu." The first sentence: "Four months after a database problem prevented thousands of U.S. users from paying their taxes on time, Intuit Inc.'s chief executive announced plans to step down." Obsessed with an embarrassing, expensive, but ultimately meaningless, glitch in Intuit's tax-prep software, IDG misses what's interesting about Bennett stepping down in December to make way for Intuit SVP Brad Smith.
