• by Masha Geller , April 12, 2002

Internet traffic shows that we still wait until the last minute to complete the dreaded task of filing our income tax returns.

Nielsen/NetRatings reports that HRBlock.com jumped 51% in traffic to 338,000 Web surfers as compared to 224,000 visitors the week prior. Traffic to TurboTax.com soared 46% week-over-week to 534,000 surfers, with the top pages visited featuring online tax filing forms.

ShopIntuit.com spiked 35% in traffic as 194,000 unique visitors logged on to the site to download tax preparation software.

Traffic to IRS.gov grew 28% to more than 1.2 million. Twenty-two percent of the surfers visiting IRS.gov accessed various tax information for individual filers while 20% accessed information on electronic preparation and filing of income taxes.

Interestingly enough, comScore says that the first rush to tax sites occurred the week ending February 10, 2002 following the widespread receipt of W-2s, 1099s, etc. This was actually the time of the highest traffic to some of these sites during the tax season.

comScore also says that during the tax season, site activity is found to be the strongest during the workweek as opposed to Saturday and Sunday and tends to peak Monday to Wednesday each week.