for other uses see intuit disambiguation . this article s lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents . please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article . please discuss this issue on the article s talk page . april 2013 intuit inc. the intuit headquarters in mountain view type public traded as nasdaq intu nasdaq 100 component s & p 500 component industry enterprise software founded 1983 ; 33 years ago 1983 palo alto california us founder scott cook tom proulx headquarters mountain view california u.s. key people brad smith chairman and ceo products personal finance accounting and tax return software revenue us 4.20 billion 2015 1 operating income us 738 million 2015 1 net income us 365 million 2015 1 total assets us 4.9 billion 2015 1 total equity us 2.3 billion 2015 1 number of employees 7 700 2015 2 website www.intuit.com intuit inc. is an american enterprise software company that develops financial and tax preparation software and related services for small businesses accountants and individuals . it is incorporated in delaware and headquartered in mountain view california . 3 4 intuit makes the personal finance programs quicken and turbotax as well as the small business accounting program quickbooks . in addition they produce quickbooks point of sale solution for small retailers professional tax solutions proseries and lacerte and the cloud based low code development platform quickbase . the company also provides web based saas versions of quickbooks quickbooks online qbo and multiple payroll products as well as providing processing options to many small businesses . the company maintains a number of foreign sales offices . it has r & d activity in intuit canada headquartered in mississauga ontario and intuit india headquartered in bengaluru india . 5 international product versions are now predominantly produced by third party localizers or licensees . contents 1 history 2 online communities 3 acquisitions and carve outs 4 controversies and lobbying 4.1 allegations of willfully allowing fraudulent returns 4.2 lawsuits 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit the company was founded in 1983 by scott cook and tom proulx in palo alto california . 6 intuit was conceived by scott cook whose prior work at procter & gamble helped him realize that personal computers would lend themselves towards replacements for paper and pencil based personal accounting . 7 on his quest to find a programmer he ended up running into tom proulx at stanford . the two started intuit which initially operated out of a modest room on university avenue in palo alto . the first version of quicken was coded in microsoft s basic programming language for the ibm pc and ucsd pascal for the apple ii by tom proulx and had to contend with a dozen serious competitors . in 1991 microsoft decided to produce a competitor to quicken called microsoft money . to win retailers loyalty intuit included a us 15 rebate coupon redeemable on software customers purchased in their stores . this was the first time a software company offered a rebate . 8 roughly around the same time the company engaged john doerr of kleiner perkins caufield & byers and diversified its product lineup . in 1993 intuit went public and used the proceeds to make a key acquisition the tax preparation software company chipsoft based in san diego . the time after the ipo was marked by rapid growth and culminated with a buyout offer from microsoft in 1994 ; at this time intuit s market capitalization reached us 2 billion . when the buyout fell through because of the united states department of justice s disapproval the company came under intense pressure in the late 1990s when microsoft started to compete vigorously with its core quicken business . 9 in response intuit launched new web based products and solutions and put more emphasis on quickbooks and on turbotax . the company made a number of investments around this time . among others it purchased a large stake in excite and acquired lacerte software a dallas based developer of tax preparation software used by tax professionals . it also divested itself of its online bill payment service unit and extended and strengthened its partnership with checkfree . today intuit has more than us 4 billion in annual revenue and a market capitalization of more than us 20 billion . citation needed intuit has been ranked in fortune s top 100 best companies to work for for the past several years . 10 intuit has been ranked in fortune s america s most admired software companies . 11 in june 2013 intuit announced it would sell its financial services unit to private equity firm thoma bravo for 1.03 billion . 12 in june 2015 intuit laid off approximately 5 % of its workforce as part of a company reorganization . 13 online communities edit intuit has several online communities some of which offer integration or cross sells into other intuit products . quickbooks online community for quickbooks users and small business owners quicken online community for quicken users and those who need help with the personal finances and the accountant online community and jump up . each consists of blogs an expert locator map and event calendar forums and discussion groups podcasts videocasts and webinars and other user created content . jumpup formerly jackrabbit beta is a free social networking and resources site for small business owners and or start ups . free tools and services include an interactive business planner online training for developing a successful business plan starting costs calculator cash flow calculator break even calculator templates for business planning and sample business plans . intuitlabs.com is a website intuit created to get new solutions into people s hands quickly . the early versions of these products and services are called roughcuts and they re offered for free so people try them and give feedback to enable rapid improvement and make sure they solve real problems well . taxalmanac is a free online tax research resource . content on taxalmanac is written by tax professionals from across the country and takes advantage of the knowledge of academia as well as practitioners . the site includes key information including the internal revenue code treasury regulations tax court cases and a variety of articles . modeled after wikipedia taxalmanac was launched in may 2005 . the june 6 2005 edition of time magazine featured an article entitled it s a wiki wiki world 14 on wikipedia in which taxalmanac was highlighted as a community of customers . the november 21 2005 edition of business week 15 featured an article titled 50 smart ways to use the web in which taxalmanac was selected as one of the 50 . taxalmanac made the short list as one of the 7 in the collaboration category . intuit shut down taxalmanac effective june 1 2014 . 16 many of the users have migrated to a new site called taxprotalk.com . 17 zipingo was a free website where users could rate services such as contractors restaurants and other businesses . ratings and comments were either entered from the website or through quicken and quickbooks . the site was closed by intuit on august 23 2007 . acquisitions and carve outs edit in 1993 intuit acquired chipsoft a tax preparation software company based in san diego . in 1994 intuit acquired the tax preparation software division of best programs of reston va. 18 in 1994 intuit acquired parsons technology from bob parsons for 64 million . 19 in 1996 intuit acquired galt technologies inc of pittsburgh pa . 20 in 1998 intuit acquired lacerte software corp. which now operates as an intuit subsidiary . 21 the lacerte subsidiary focuses on tax software used by professional accountants who prepare taxes for a living . it is generally used by larger firms with more complex workflows and clients . in 1999 intuit acquired computing resources inc. for approximately 200 million . this acquisition allowed intuit to offer a payroll processing platform through its quickbooks software program . 22 in december 1999 intuit purchased rock financial for a sum of 532m . the company was renamed quicken loans . in june 2002 rock financial founder dan gilbert led a small group of private investors in purchasing the quicken loans subsidiary back from intuit . 23 in 2002 intuit acquired management reports international a cleveland based real estate management software firm . the firm was renamed intuit real estate solutions ires and offers real estate management solutions for windows and the web . in 2003 intuit inc. acquired innovative merchant solutions ims . ims provided merchant services to all types of businesses nationwide . the acquisition gave intuit the ability to process credit cards through their core product quickbooks without the need of hardware leasing . they can also provide traditional terminal based credit card processing and downloading transactions directly into the quickbooks software . in november 2005 intuit acquired mycorporation.com an online business document filing service for 20 million from original founders philip and nellie akalp . 24 in september 2006 intuit acquired stepup commerce an online localized product listing syndicator for 60 million in cash . 25 in december 2006 intuit acquired digital insight a provider of online banking services . 26 27 in december 2007 intuit acquired electronic clearing house 28 to add check processing power . in december 2007 intuit acquired homestead technologies 29 which offers web site creation and e commerce tools targeted at the small business market for 170 million . in april 2009 intuit acquired boorah a restaurant review site . 30 on june 2 2009 intuit inc. announced the signing of a definitive agreement to purchase paycycle inc. an online payroll services in an all cash transaction for approximately 170 million . 31 on september 14 2009 intuit inc. agreed to acquire mint.com a free online personal finance service for 170 million . 32 33 on january 15 2010 intuit inc. spun off intuit real estate solutions which intuit acquired in 2002 as a stand alone company . 34 the new company took on its previous moniker and is now known as mri software . 35 on may 21 2010 intuit inc. acquired medfusion a cary nc leader of patient to provider communications for approximately 91 million . 36 on august 10 2010 intuit inc. acquired the personal finance management app cha ching . 37 on june 28 2011 intuit inc. acquired the web banking technology assets of mobile money ventures a mobile financial solutions provider for an undisclosed amount . this acquisition is expected to position intuit as the largest online and mobile technology provider to financial institutions . 38 on may 18 2012 intuit inc. acquired demandforce an automated small business marketing and customer communications saas provider for approximately 423.5 million . 39 on august 15 2012 intuit inc announced an agreement to sell their grow your business business unit to endurance international . the carve out included the intuit websites and weblistings products which were formed from the homestead technologies and stepup commerce acquisitions . 40 41 on july 1 2013 intuit announced an agreement to sell their intuit financial services ifs business unit formerly known as digital insight to thoma bravo for more than 1.03 billion . 42 on august 19 2013 intuit announced that they had sold their intuit health business unit formerly known as medfusion back to medfusion s founder steve malik . 43 on october 23 2013 intuit acquired level up analytics a data consulting firm . 44 on october 30 2013 intuit inc. acquired full slate a developer of appointment scheduling software for small businesses . 45 in may 2014 intuit inc. bought invitco to help bookkeepers put bill processing in the cloud . 46 in december 2014 intuit inc. acquired acrede uk based provider of global cross border and cloud based payroll services .