Shares of H&R Block and Intuit experienced significant declines following reports about a potential free tax filing app being considered by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). H&R Block's stock fell by as much as 9%, while Intuit, which owns the online tax filing platform TurboTax, saw its shares drop by 7%.
The DOGE, co-led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is reportedly discussing the creation of a mobile application to allow Americans to file their taxes for free. Over the weekend, the DOGE's account highlighted the complexity of the U.S. tax code, noting that since 1955, the number of words in the tax code has increased by nearly 1,000%.
The post emphasized, "In 1955, the U.S. tax code had less than 1.5 million words. Today, it has over 16 million words. Due to this complexity, Americans spend a total of 6.5 billion hours annually preparing and filing their taxes. This needs to be simplified."
H&R Block generates nearly $4 billion annually from its tax preparation services, while approximately one-third of Intuit's revenue, around $5 billion, comes from its TurboTax service.
