• by April 11, 2002

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that various tax preparation Web sites skyrocketed in traffic during the week ending April 7, as surfers at-home flocked to the Web to beat the upcoming April 15 tax-filing deadline.

HRBlock.com jumped 51 percent in traffic to 338,000 Web surfers as compared to 224,000 visitors the week prior. Traffic to TurboTax.com soared 46 percent week-over-week to 534,000 surfers, with the top pages visited featuring online tax filing forms. ShopIntuit.com spiked 35 percent in traffic as 194,000 unique visitors logged on to the site to download tax preparation software.

Traffic to IRS.gov grew 28 percent to more than 1.2 million. Twenty-two percent of the surfers visiting IRS.gov accessed various tax information for individual filers while 20 percent accessed information on electronic preparation and filing of income taxes. Rounding out the list of various tax sites that spiked in traffic, more than 1.7 million surfers logged on to Quicken.com, as traffic to the site jumped 25 percent as compared to the week prior.

"Each year, an increasing number of surfers chose to prepare and file their income taxes online, pointing to the fact that transactions such as online tax preparation are becoming more widely accepted by the general public," said Patrick Thomas, senior Internet analyst, NetRatings. "With just a few days to go before the tax deadline, the Web expedites the filing process and makes tax preparation less burdensome, giving surfers added incentive to e-file."