Intuit sees TurboTax retail sales rise

Software maker Intuit on Thursday said that as of Feb. 5, total sales of its tax filing software package, TurboTax, reached 5.9 million, up from 5.4 million a year ago. The increase was driven by sales of the online version of its software, which saw a 9 percent gain from a year ago. The total includes 607,000 packages that the company distributed for free under the Internal Revenue Service's Free File Program. Direct sales of the software to consumers dropped 7 percent year over year.

Sales were sluggish until the first week of January, with the company reporting a 5 percent decline in year-over-year sales. Intuit is anticipating further growth in sales as it gets closer to the April 15 deadline for filing federal income taxes.