Our businesses routinely encounter and address risks, many of which could cause our future results to be materially different than we presently anticipate. Below, we describe certain important risks, categorized solely for ease of reference as strategic, operational, legal and compliance, and financial risks. The manner in which we respond to future developments as well as our competitors’ reactions to those developments may affect our future operating results.
STRATEGIC RISKS
Strategic risks relate to our current and future operating model, business plans and growth strategy, including the risks associated with the following: competitive pressures on our product offerings and business models; our ability to adapt to technological changes and global trends; our reliance on third-party intellectual property and our ability to protect our own intellectual property rights; the value of our brand; and mergers, acquisitions and divestiture activity that may have unanticipated costs and expenses.
We face intense competitive pressures that may harm our operating results.
We face intense competition in all of our businesses, and we expect competition to remain intense in the future. Our competitors and potential competitors range from large and established entities to emerging start-ups. Our competitors may introduce superior products and services, reduce prices, have greater technical, marketing and other resources, have greater name recognition, have larger installed bases of customers, have well-established relationships with our current and potential customers, advertise aggressively or beat us to market with new products and services. In addition, we may face competition from existing companies, with large established consumer user-bases and broad-based platforms, who may change or expand the focus of their business strategies and marketing to target our customers, including small businesses and tax customers.
We also face competition from companies with a variety of business models and monetization strategies, including increased competition from providers of free offerings, particularly in our tax, accounting, and payments businesses. In order to compete, we have also introduced free offerings in several categories, but we may not be able to attract customers as effectively as competitors with different business models. In addition, we may not be able to monetize our free offerings if other providers of free offerings provide features that we do not offer and customers who have formerly paid for Intuit’s products and services may elect to use our competitors’ free offerings instead. These competitive factors may diminish our revenue and profitability, and harm our ability to acquire and retain customers.
Our consumer tax business also faces significant competition from the public sector, where we face the risk of federal and state taxing authorities proposing revenue strategies that involve developing and providing government tax software or other government return preparation systems at public expense. These or similar programs may be introduced or expanded in the future, which may change the voluntary compliance tax system in ways that could cause us to lose customers and revenue. The IRS Free File Program is currently the sole means by which the IRS offers tax software to taxpayers, and as part of the program the IRS has agreed it will not offer a competing service. Under this program, the IRS has worked with private industry to provide more than 50 million free returns since 2003, utilizing donated private sector tax software and e-filing services for low and middle income taxpayers at no cost to users or the government. However, its continuation depends on a number of factors, including increasing public awareness of and access to the free program, as well as continued government support. The current agreement is scheduled to expire in October 2020. If the Free File Program were to be terminated and the IRS were to enter the software development and return preparation space, the federal government would become a direct competitor of the U.S. tax services industry and of Intuit, which could potentially have material and adverse revenue implications.
Future revenue growth depends upon our ability to adapt to technological change as well as global trends in the way customers access consumer software offerings and successfully introduce new and enhanced products, services and business models.
Online offerings, desktop software and mobile technology industries are characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and frequent new product introductions. As we continue to grow our online, mobile, and other
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offerings, we must continue to innovate and develop new products and features to meet changing customer needs and attract and retain talented software developers. We need to continue to develop our skills, tools and capabilities to capitalize on existing and emerging technologies, which require us to devote significant resources.
Our consumer and professional tax businesses depend significantly on revenue from customers who return each year to use our updated tax preparation and filing software and services. As our existing products mature, encouraging customers to purchase product upgrades becomes more challenging unless new product releases provide features and functionality that have meaningful incremental value. We also provide additional customer benefits by utilizing customer data available to us through our existing offerings. If we are not able to develop and clearly demonstrate the value of new or upgraded products or services to our customers, or effectively utilize our customers’ data, our revenues may be harmed. In addition, as we continue to introduce and expand our new business models, including offerings that are free to end users, we may be unsuccessful in monetizing or increasing customer adoption of these offerings or our risk profile may change, resulting in loss of revenue.
The number of people who access products and services through devices other than personal computers, including mobile phones, smartphones, and handheld computers such as tablets, continues to increase. We have devoted significant resources to develop products and services for users of these alternative devices, but the versions of our products and services developed for these devices may not be compelling to users. Even if we are able to attract new users through these mobile offerings, the amount of revenue that we derive per user from mobile offerings may be less than the revenue that we have historically derived from users of personal computers. As new devices and new platforms are continually being released, it is difficult to predict the problems we may encounter in developing versions of our products and services for use on these alternative devices and we may need to devote significant resources to the creation, support, and maintenance of such offerings. If we are slow to develop products and technologies that are compatible with these alternative devices, or if our competitors are able to achieve those results more quickly than us, we will fail to capture a significant share of an increasingly important portion of the market for online services, which could adversely affect our business.
In some cases, we may expend a significant amount of resources and management attention on offerings that do not ultimately succeed in their markets. We have encountered difficulty in launching new products and services in the past. If we misjudge customer needs in the future, our new products and services may not succeed and our revenues and earnings may be harmed. We have also invested, and in the future, expect to invest in new business models, geographies, strategies and initiatives. Such endeavors may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including distraction of management from current operations, expenses associated with the initiatives and inadequate return on investments. Because these new initiatives are inherently risky, they may not be successful and may harm our financial condition and operating results.
We rely on third-party intellectual property in our products and services.
Many of our products and services include intellectual property of third parties, which we license under agreements that may need to be renewed or renegotiated from time to time. We may not be able to obtain licenses to these third-party technologies or content on reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to obtain the rights necessary to use this intellectual property in our products and services, we may not be able to sell the affected offerings, and customers who are currently using the affected product may be disrupted, which may in turn harm our future financial results, damage our brand, and result in customer loss. Also, we and our customers have been and may continue to be subject to infringement claims as a result of the third-party intellectual property incorporated in our offerings. Although we try to mitigate this risk and we may not be ultimately liable for any potential infringement, pending claims require us to use significant resources, require management attention and could result in loss of customers.
Some of our offerings include third-party software that is licensed under so-called “open source” licenses, some of which may include a requirement that, under certain circumstances, we make available, or grant licenses to, any modifications or derivative works we create based upon the open source software. Although we have established internal review and approval processes to mitigate these risks, we may not be sure that all open source software is submitted for approval prior to use in our products. Many of the risks associated with usage of open source may not be eliminated, and may, if not properly addressed, harm our business.
Our intellectual property rights are valuable, and any inability to protect them could reduce the value of our products, services, and brand.
Our patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights and other intellectual property rights are important assets for us. We aggressively protect our intellectual property rights by relying on federal, state and common law rights in the U.S. and internationally, as well as a variety of administrative procedures. We also rely on contractual restrictions to protect our proprietary rights in products and services. The efforts that we take to protect our proprietary rights may not always be sufficient or effective. Protecting our intellectual property rights is costly and time consuming and may not be successful in every location. Any significant impairment of our intellectual property rights could harm our business, our brand and our ability to compete.
Policing unauthorized use and copying of our products is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Current U.S. laws that prohibit copying give us only limited practical protection from software piracy and the laws of many other countries provide very little protection. We frequently encounter unauthorized copies of our software being sold through online marketplaces. Although we continue to evaluate and put in place technology solutions to attempt to lessen the impact of piracy and engage
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in efforts to educate consumers and public policy leaders on these issues and cooperate with industry groups in their efforts to combat piracy, we expect piracy to be a persistent problem that results in lost revenues and increased expenses.
Our business depends on our strong reputation and the value of our brands.
Developing and maintaining awareness of our brands is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our existing and future products and services and is an important element in attracting new customers. Adverse publicity (whether or not justified) relating to events or activities attributed to us, our employees or agents may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brands. Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity may reduce demand for our products and services and thus have an adverse effect on our future financial results, as well as require additional resources to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of the brands.
Our acquisition and divestiture activities may disrupt our ongoing business, may involve increased expenses and may present risks not contemplated at the time of the transactions.
We have acquired and may continue to acquire companies, products and technologies that complement our strategic direction, both in and outside the United States. Acquisitions involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:
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inability to successfully integrate the acquired technology, data assets and operations into our business and maintain uniform standards, controls, policies, and procedures;
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inability to realize synergies expected to result from an acquisition;
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disruption of our ongoing business and distraction of management;
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challenges retaining the key employees, customers, resellers and other business partners of the acquired operation;
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the internal control environment of an acquired entity may not be consistent with our standards or with regulatory requirements, and may require significant time and resources to align or rectify;
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unidentified issues not discovered in our due diligence process, including product or service quality issues, intellectual property issues and legal contingencies;
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failure to successfully further develop an acquired business or technology and any resulting impairment of amounts currently capitalized as intangible assets;
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in the case of foreign acquisitions and investments, the impact of particular economic, tax, currency, political, legal and regulatory risks associated with specific countries.
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We have divested and may in the future divest certain assets or businesses that no longer fit with our strategic direction or growth targets. Divestitures involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:
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inability to find potential buyers on favorable terms;
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failure to effectively transfer liabilities, contracts, facilities and employees to buyers;
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requirements that we retain or indemnify buyers against certain liabilities and obligations;
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the possibility that we will become subject to third-party claims arising out of such divestiture;
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challenges in identifying and separating the intellectual properties and data to be divested from the intellectual properties and data that we wish to retain;
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inability to reduce fixed costs previously associated with the divested assets or business;
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challenges in collecting the proceeds from any divestiture;
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disruption of our ongoing business and distraction of management;
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loss of key employees who leave the Company as a result of a divestiture;
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if customers or partners of the divested business do not receive the same level of service from the new owners, our other businesses may be adversely affected, to the extent that these customers or partners also purchase other products offered by us or otherwise conduct business with our retained business.
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Because acquisitions and divestitures are inherently risky, our transactions may not be successful and may, in some cases, harm our operating results or financial condition. Although we typically fund our acquisitions through cash available from operations, if we were to use debt to fund acquisitions or for other purposes, our interest expense and leverage would increase significantly, and if we were to issue equity securities as consideration in an acquisition, current shareholders’ percentage ownership and earnings per share would be diluted.
OPERATIONAL RISKS
Operational risks arise from internal and external events relating to systems, processes and people. Risks that affect the operation of our businesses include the following: security breaches; privacy and cybersecurity concerns relating to online
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offerings; fraudulent activities by third parties; relationships with third parties; competition for and retention of key talent; issues with our product launches; problems with our information technology infrastructure; and risks associated with operating internationally.
A security breach of us or our vendors resulting in third-party access to our sensitive customer and employee information and data, or other sensitive, nonpublic business information, could materially disrupt our businesses, result in the disclosure of confidential information, significantly damage our reputation, subject us to costly litigation and cause material losses.
We host, collect, use and retain large amounts of sensitive and personal customer and employee information and data, including credit card information, tax return information, bank account numbers and passwords, personal and business financial data and transactions, social security numbers, healthcare information and payroll information, as well as confidential, nonpublic business information. We use commercially available security technologies to protect this information and data, and we also use security and business controls to limit access to and use of such sensitive information and data. Although we expend significant resources to create security protections that shield our, and our customers', data against potential theft and security breaches, such measures cannot provide absolute security. We have experienced instances in the past where criminals, using stolen identity information obtained outside of our systems, have gained unauthorized and illegal access to our customers’ data. As the accessibility of stolen identity information increases, we may experience additional instances of unauthorized and illegal access to our systems using our customers’ stolen identity information in the future. Further, as we move to an ecosystem where customers have one identity across multiple products, a security breach may give access to increased amounts of customer data. In addition, third parties may fraudulently induce employees, customers, or users to disclose sensitive information in order to gain access to our systems, which host our, and our customers’, sensitive data. The security measures that we implement may not be able to prevent access to our systems from unauthorized users who have fraudulently obtained our customers’ personal information. In addition, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access change frequently, becoming more sophisticated and are often not able to be detected until after a successful attack, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventive measures.
Our technologies, systems, and networks and our customers’ devices have been subject to, and are likely to continue to be the target of, cyber-attacks, computer viruses, worms, phishing attacks, malicious software programs and other information security breaches that could result in the unauthorized release, gathering, monitoring, misuse, loss or destruction of our customers’ or employees’ sensitive and personal information and data or Intuit's sensitive business data. These attacks could also disrupt our or our customers’ or other third parties’ business operations. These types of attacks can be made by individuals, groups of hackers, and sophisticated organizations including state-sponsored organizations or nation-states themselves. Customers that fail to update their systems, continue to run software that we no longer support or that fail to install security patches on a timely basis make it more difficult for us to detect and prevent these kinds of attacks. Although this is an industry-wide problem that affects software across platforms, it is increasingly affecting our offerings because cyber-criminals tend to focus their efforts on well-known offerings that are popular among customers and hold sensitive information and we expect them to continue to do so. If these cyber-criminals are able to circumvent our security measures, exploit vulnerabilities in our customers’ devices or customers’ behavior, or if we are unable to detect an intrusion into our systems and contain such intrusion in a reasonable amount of time, our customers’ sensitive and personal information and data may be compromised.
We also rely on certain third-party partners and vendors that have access to customer data to help deliver customer benefits, or host certain of our and our customers' sensitive and personal information and data. In addition, we share sensitive, nonpublic business information (including, for example, materials relating to financial, business and legal strategies) with other vendors in the ordinary course of business. While we conduct background checks of our employees and these other individuals and limit access to systems and data, it is possible that one or more of these individuals may circumvent these controls, resulting in accidental or intentional disclosure or misuse of our customers’ or employees’ data. In addition, we rely on third-party vendors to host certain of our sensitive and personal information and data. While we conduct due diligence on these third-party partners with respect to their security and business controls, we may not have the ability to effectively monitor or oversee the implementation of these controls measures, and, in any event, individuals or third parties may be able to circumvent these security and business controls and/or exploit vulnerabilities that may exist in these controls, resulting in the disclosure or misuse of sensitive business and personal customer or employee information and data.
A major breach of our security measures or those of our third party vendors may have serious negative consequences for our businesses, including disclosure of sensitive customer or employee data, or confidential or competitively sensitive information regarding our business, including intellectual property and other proprietary data; possible litigation, fines, penalties and damages; material harm to our reputation and brands; further regulation and oversight by federal or state agencies; and loss of our ability to provide financial transaction services or accept and process customer credit card orders or tax returns.
Privacy and cybersecurity concerns relating to online offerings, including our offerings specifically, as well as the external environment generally, and security breaches of third-party offerings, could make our products more vulnerable to fraudulent activity, damage our reputation and deter current and potential customers from adopting our products and services.
From time to time, we detect, or receive notices from customers or public or private agencies that they have detected, actual or perceived vulnerabilities in our servers, our software or third-party software components that are distributed with our
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products or fraudulent activity by unauthorized persons utilizing our products with stolen customer identity information. The existence of such vulnerabilities or fraudulent activity, even if they do not result in a security breach, may undermine customer confidence as well as the confidence of government agencies that regulate our offerings. As we further transition our businesses to online and connected services, continue to collect more personal and sensitive information, and operate in more countries, the risk that perceived vulnerabilities of our systems could seriously harm our business by tarnishing our reputation and brand and/or limiting the adoption of our products and services is likely to increase.
In addition, the continued occurrence of cyber-attacks and data breaches on governments, businesses and consumers in general, indicates that we operate in an external environment where cyber-attacks and data breaches are becoming increasingly common. If the global cybersecurity environment worsens, and there are increased instances of security breaches of third-party offerings where consumers’ data and sensitive information is compromised, consumers may be less willing to use online offerings, particularly offerings like ours where customers often share sensitive financial data. In addition, the increased availability of data obtained as a result of breaches of third-party offerings could make our own products more vulnerable to fraudulent activity. This could damage our reputation and deter current and potential customers from adopting our products and services or lead customers to cease using online and connected software products to transact financial business altogether.
If we are unable to effectively combat the increasing amount and sophistication of fraudulent activities by third parties using our offerings, we may suffer losses, which may be substantial, and lose the confidence of our customers and government agencies and our revenues and earnings may be harmed.
The online tax preparation, payroll administration and online payments industries have been experiencing an increasing amount of fraudulent activities by third parties, and those fraudulent activities are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Although we do not believe that any of this activity is uniquely targeted at our products or business, this type of fraudulent activity may adversely impact our tax, payroll, and payments businesses. In addition to any losses that may result from such fraud, which may be substantial, a loss of confidence by our customers or by governmental agencies in our ability to prevent fraudulent activity that is perpetrated through our offerings may seriously harm our business and damage our brand. If we cannot adequately combat such fraudulent activity that is perpetrated through our tax offerings, governmental authorities may refuse to allow us to continue to offer such services, which could include federal or state tax authorities refusing to allow us to process our customers’ tax returns electronically, resulting in a significant adverse impact on our earnings and revenue. As fraudulent activities become more pervasive and increasingly sophisticated, and fraud detection and prevention measures must become correspondingly more complex to combat them across the various industries in which we operate, we may implement risk control mechanisms that could make it more difficult for legitimate customers to obtain and use our products, which could result in lost revenue and negatively impact our earnings.
If we fail to process transactions effectively or fail to adequately protect against disputed or potential fraudulent activities, our business may be harmed.
Our operations process a significant volume and dollar value of transactions on a daily basis, especially in our payroll and payments businesses. Despite our efforts to ensure that effective processing systems and controls are in place to handle transactions appropriately, it is possible that we may make errors or that funds may be misappropriated due to fraud. The systems supporting our business are comprised of multiple technology platforms that are difficult to scale. If we are unable to effectively manage our systems and processes, or if there is an error in our products, we may be unable to process customer data in an accurate, reliable and timely manner, which may harm our reputation, the willingness of customers to use our products, and our financial results. In our payments processing service business, if merchants for whom we process payment transactions are unable to pay refunds due to their customers in connection with disputed or fraudulent merchant transactions, we may be required to pay those amounts and our payments may exceed the amount of the customer reserves we have established to make such payments.
Business interruption or failure of our information technology and communication systems may impair the availability of our products and services, which may damage our reputation and harm our future financial results.
Our reputation and ability to attract, retain and serve our customers is dependent upon the reliable performance of our products and our underlying technical infrastructure. As we continue to transition our business to more connected services, we become more dependent on the continuing operation and availability of our information technology and communication systems and those of our external service providers, including, for example, third-party Internet-based or “cloud” computing services. We do not have redundancy for all of our systems, many of our critical applications reside in only one of our data centers, and our disaster recovery planning may not account for all eventualities. In the event of significant system disruption we may experience loss of data or processing capabilities, which may cause us to lose customers and may materially harm our reputation and our operating results. In addition, we are in the process of updating our customer facing applications and the supporting information technology infrastructure to meet our customers’ expectations for continuous service availability. Any difficulties in upgrading these applications or infrastructure or failure of our systems or those of our third-party service providers may result in interruptions in our service, which may reduce our revenues and profits, cause us to lose customers and damage our reputation. Any prolonged interruptions at any time may result in lost customers, additional refunds of customer
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charges, negative publicity and increased operating costs, any of which may significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our tax businesses must effectively handle extremely heavy customer demand during critical peak periods from January until April of each year. We face significant risks in maintaining adequate service levels during these peak periods where we derive a substantial portion of our overall revenue from the tax businesses. Any interruptions in our online tax preparation or electronic filing service at any time during the tax season, particularly during a peak period, could result in significantly decreased revenue, lost customers, additional refunds of customer charges, negative publicity and increased operating costs, any of which could significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are in the process of migrating our applications and infrastructure to new data centers and to third-party hosted environments. If we do not execute the transition to these new environments in an effective manner, we may experience unplanned service disruptions or unforeseen increases in costs which may harm our operating results and our business.
We rely on internal systems and external systems maintained by manufacturers, distributors and other service providers to take and fulfill customer orders, handle customer service requests and host certain online activities. Any interruption or failure of our internal or external systems may prevent us or our service providers from accepting and fulfilling customer orders or cause company and customer data to be unintentionally disclosed. Our continuing efforts to upgrade and expand our network security and other information systems as well as our high-availability capabilities may be costly, and problems with the design or implementation of system enhancements may harm our business and our results of operations.
Our business operations, data centers, information technology and communications systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption from natural disasters, human error, malicious attacks, fire, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, computer denial of service attacks, terrorist attacks and other events beyond our control. In addition, our corporate headquarters and other critical business operations are located near major seismic faults. In the event of a major natural or man-made disaster, our insurance coverage may not completely compensate us for our losses and our future financial results may be materially harmed.
If we are unable to develop, manage and maintain critical third-party business relationships, our business may be adversely affected.
Our growth is increasingly dependent on the strength of our business relationships and our ability to continue to develop, manage and maintain new and existing relationships. We rely on various third-party partners, including software and service providers, suppliers, vendors, manufacturers, distributors, accountants, contractors, financial institutions, core processors, licensing partners and development partners, among others, in many areas of our business in order to deliver our offerings and operate our business. We also rely on third parties to support the operation of our business by maintaining our physical facilities, equipment, power systems and infrastructure. In certain instances, these third-party relationships are sole source or limited source relationships and can be difficult to replace or substitute depending on the level of integration of the third party’s products or services into, or with, our offerings and/or the general availability of such third party’s products and services. In addition, there may be few or no alternative third-party providers or vendors in the market. Further, there can be no assurance that we will be able to adequately retain third-party contractors engaged to help us operate our business. The failure of third parties to provide acceptable and high quality products, services and technologies or to update their products, services and technologies may result in a disruption to our business operations and our customers, which may reduce our revenues and profits, cause us to lose customers and damage our reputation. Alternative arrangements and services may not be available to us on commercially reasonable terms or we may experience business interruptions upon a transition to an alternative partner.
Although we have strict standards for our suppliers and business partners to comply with the law and company policies regarding workplace and employment practices, data use and security, environmental compliance, intellectual property licensing and other applicable regulatory and compliance requirements, we cannot control their day-to-day practices. If any of them violate laws or implements practices regarded as unethical, we could experience supply chain disruptions, canceled orders, terminations of or damage to key relationships, and damage to our reputation.
In particular, we have relationships with banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that support certain critical services we offer to our customers. If macroeconomic conditions or other factors cause any of these institutions to fail, consolidate, stop providing certain services or institute cost-cutting efforts, our business and financial results may suffer and we may be unable to offer those services to our customers.
We have also started to increasingly utilize the distribution platforms of third parties like Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for the distribution of certain of our product offerings. Although we benefit from the strong brand recognition and large user base of these distribution platforms to attract new customers, the platform owners have wide discretion to change the pricing structure, terms of service and other policies with respect to us and other developers. Any adverse changes by these third parties could adversely affect our financial results.
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Because competition for our key employees is intense, we may not be able to attract, retain and develop the highly skilled employees we need to support our planned growth.
Much of our future success depends on the continued service and availability of skilled personnel, including members of our executive team, and those in technical, marketing and staff positions. Experienced personnel in the software, mobile technologies, data science, data security, and software as a service industries are in high demand and competition for their talents is intense, especially in California and India, where the majority of our employees are located. Also, as we strive to continue to adapt to technological change and introduce new and enhanced products and business models, we must be able to secure, maintain and develop the right quality and quantity of engaged and committed talent. The incentives we have available to attract, retain, and motivate employees provided by our equity awards may become less effective, and if we were to issue significant equity to attract additional employees, the ownership of our existing stockholders would be diluted. Although we strive to be an employer of choice, we may not be able to continue to successfully attract, retain and develop key personnel, which may cause our business to suffer.
The nature of our products and services necessitates timely product launches, and if we experience significant product accuracy or quality problems or delays, it may harm our revenue, earnings and reputation.
All of our tax products and many of our non-tax products have rigid development timetables that increase the risk of errors in our products and the risk of launch delays. Our tax preparation software product development cycle is particularly challenging due to the need to incorporate unpredictable and potentially late tax law and tax form changes each year and because our customers expect high levels of accuracy and a timely launch of these products to prepare and file their taxes by the tax filing deadline. Due to the complexity of our products and the condensed development cycles under which we operate, our products may contain errors that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the software or result in incorrect calculations. The complexity of the tax laws on which our products are based may also make it difficult for us to consistently deliver offerings that contain the features, functionality and level of accuracy that our customers expect. When we encounter problems we may be required to modify our code, work with state tax administrators to communicate with affected customers, assist customers with amendments, distribute patches to customers who have already purchased the product and recall or repackage existing product inventory in our distribution channels. If we encounter development challenges or discover errors in our products either late in our development cycle or after release it may cause us to delay our product launch date or suspend product availability until such issues can be fixed. Any major defects, launch delays or product suspensions may lead to loss of customers and revenue, negative publicity, customer and employee dissatisfaction, reduced retailer shelf space and promotions, and increased operating expenses, such as inventory replacement costs, legal fees or other payments, including those resulting from our accuracy guarantee in our tax preparation products. For example, an error in our tax products could cause a compliance error for taxpayers, including the over or underpayment of their federal or state tax liability. While our accuracy guarantee commits us to reimburse penalties and interest paid by customers due solely to calculation errors in our tax preparation products, such errors may result in additional burdens on third parties that we may need to address or that may cause us to suspend the availability of our products until such errors are addressed. This could also affect our reputation, the willingness of customers to use our products, and our financial results.
We regularly invest resources to update and improve our internal information technology systems and software platforms. Should our investments not succeed, or if delays or other issues with new or existing internal technology systems and software platforms disrupt our operations, our business could be harmed.
We rely on our network and data center infrastructure and internal technology systems for many of our development, marketing, operational, support, sales, accounting and financial reporting activities. We are continually investing resources to update and improve these systems and environments in order to meet existing, as well as the growing and changing requirements of our business and customers. If we experience prolonged delays or unforeseen difficulties in updating and upgrading our systems and architecture, we may experience outages and may not be able to deliver certain offerings and develop new offerings and enhancements that we need to remain competitive. Such improvements and upgrades are often complex, costly and time consuming. In addition such improvements can be challenging to integrate with our existing technology systems, or may uncover problems with our existing technology systems. Unsuccessful implementation of hardware or software updates and improvements could result in outages, disruption in our business operations, loss of revenue or damage to our reputation.
Our international operations are subject to increased risks which may harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
In addition to uncertainty about our ability to generate revenues from our foreign operations and expand into international markets, there are risks inherent in doing business internationally, including:
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different or more restrictive privacy, data protection, data localization, and other laws that could require us to make changes to our products, services and operations, such as mandating that certain types of data collected in a particular country be stored and/or processed within that country;
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difficulties in developing, staffing, and simultaneously managing a large number of varying foreign operations as a result of distance, language, and cultural differences;
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stringent local labor laws and regulations;
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credit risk and higher levels of payment fraud;
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profit repatriation restrictions, and foreign currency exchange restrictions;
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geopolitical events, including natural disasters, acts of war and terrorism;
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import or export regulations;
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compliance with U.S. laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and local laws prohibiting corrupt payments to government officials;
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antitrust and competition regulations;
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potentially adverse tax developments;
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economic uncertainties relating to European sovereign and other debt;
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trade barriers and changes in trade regulations;
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political or social unrest, economic instability, repression, or human rights issues; and
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risks related to other government regulation or required compliance with local laws.
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Violations of the rapidly evolving and complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations that apply to our international operations may result in fines, criminal actions or sanctions against us, our officers or our employees, prohibitions on the conduct of our business and damage to our reputation. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to promote compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors or agents will not violate our policies. These risks inherent in our international operations and expansion increase our costs of doing business internationally and may result in harm to our business, operating results, and financial condition.
LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE RISKS
Legal and compliance risks arise from change in the government and regulatory environment, potential litigation, regulatory inquiries and intellectual property infringement claims. Government and regulatory risk include the following: increased government regulations; ongoing litigation and regulatory inquiries; and intellectual property infringement.
Increased government regulation of our businesses, or changes to existing regulations, may harm our operating results.
The Company is subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations that affect the Company’s activities, including, without limitation, areas of labor, advertising, tax, financial services, data privacy and security requirements, digital content, consumer protection, real estate, billing, e-commerce, promotions, quality of services, intellectual property ownership and infringement, import and export requirements, anti-corruption, foreign exchange controls and cash repatriation restrictions, anti-competition, environmental, health and safety.
There have been significant new regulations and heightened focus by the government on many of these areas, as well as in areas such as insurance and healthcare (including, for example, the Affordable Care Act). A
s we expand our products and services and revise our business models, both domestically and internationally, we may become subject to additional government regulation or increased regulatory scrutiny. Further, regulators (both in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions in which we operate) may adopt new laws or regulations, change existing regulations, or their interpretation of existing laws or regulations may differ from ours .
As our business continues to expand to countries outside the United States that have more strict data protection laws, our compliance requirements and costs may increase. Recent legal developments in the European Union have created compliance uncertainty and increased complexity regarding certain transfers of information from Europe to the U.S. The European Commission has approved a data protection regulation, known as the GDPR, which has been finalized and is due to come into force in May 2018. The GDPR will require certain operational changes to be made by companies that receive or process personal data of residents of the EU and will include significant penalties for non-compliance. In addition, other governmental authorities around the world are considering similar types of legislative and regulatory proposals concerning data protection. Due to the uncertain international environment, we could face additional compliance obligations that could cause us to incur costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business. Further, these regulatory requirements could also
impose significant limitations, require changes to our business, require notification to customers or employees of a security breach, restrict our use or storage of personal information, or cause changes in customer purchasing behavior which may make our business more costly, less efficient or impossible to conduct, and may require us to modify our current or future products or services, which may make customers less likely to purchase our products or harm our future financial results. We have incurred – and may continue to incur – significant expenses to comply with mandatory privacy and security standards and protocols imposed by law, regulation, industry standards or contractual obligations.
The tax preparation industry continues to receive heightened attention from federal and state governments. New legislation, regulation, public policy considerations, changes in the cybersecurity environment, litigation by the government or private entities, changes to or new interpretations of existing laws may result in greater oversight of the tax preparation industry, restrict the types of products and services that we can offer or the prices we can charge, or otherwise cause us to change the
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way we operate our tax businesses or offer our tax products and services. We may not be able to respond quickly to such regulatory, legislative and other developments, and these changes may in turn increase our cost of doing business and limit our revenue opportunities. In addition, if our practices are not consistent with new interpretations of existing laws, we may become subject to lawsuits, penalties, and other liabilities that did not previously apply. We are also required to comply with a variety of state revenue agency standards in order to successfully operate our tax preparation and electronic filing services. Changes in state-imposed requirements by one or more of the states, including the required use of specific technologies or technology standards, may significantly increase the costs of providing those services to our customers and may prevent us from delivering a quality product to our customers in a timely manner.
We are also subject to certain laws and regulations in the U.S. and other jurisdictions relating to electronic funds transfer, money transmission and other regulated activities. In the event laws governing regulated activities change or expand, we may be subject to additional compliance costs. As we increase our business activities into regulated areas, such as lending, we may be subject to increased regulations and compliance requirements.
We are frequently a party to litigation and regulatory inquiries which could result in an unfavorable outcome and have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows.
We are subject to various legal proceedings (including class action lawsuits), claims and regulatory inquiries that have arisen out of the ordinary conduct of our business and are not yet resolved and additional claims and inquiries may arise in the future. The number and significance of these claims and inquiries have increased as our businesses have evolved. Any proceedings, claims or inquiries initiated by or against us, whether successful or not, may be time consuming; result in costly litigation, damage awards, consent decrees, injunctive relief or increased costs of business; require us to change our business practices or products; require significant amounts of management time; result in diversion of significant operations resources; or otherwise harm our business and future financial results. For further information about specific litigation, see Item 1, “Legal Proceedings”.
Third parties claiming that we infringe their proprietary rights may cause us to incur significant legal expenses and prevent us from selling our products.
We may become increasingly subject to infringement claims, including patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark infringement claims. Litigation may be necessary to determine the validity and scope of the intellectual property rights of others. We have received a number of allegations of intellectual property infringement claims in the past and expect to receive more claims in the future based on allegations that our offerings infringe upon the intellectual property held by third parties. Some of these claims are the subject of pending litigation against us and against some of our customers. These claims may involve patent holding companies or other adverse intellectual property owners who have no relevant product revenues of their own, and against whom our own intellectual property may provide little or no deterrence. The ultimate outcome of any allegation is uncertain and, regardless of outcome, any such claim, with or without merit, may be time consuming to defend, result in costly litigation, divert management’s time and attention from our business, require us to stop selling, delay shipping or redesign our products, or require us to pay monetary damages for royalty or licensing fees, or to satisfy indemnification obligations that we have with some of our customers. Our failure to obtain necessary license or other rights, or litigation arising out of intellectual property claims may harm our business.
We are subject to risks associated with information disseminated through our services.
The laws relating to the liability of online services companies for information such as online content disseminated through their services are subject to frequent challenges. In spite of settled law in the U.S., claims are made against online services companies by parties who disagree with the content. Where our online content is accessed on the internet outside of the U.S., challenges may be brought under foreign laws which do not provide the same protections for online services companies as in the U.S. These challenges in either U.S. or foreign jurisdictions may rise to legal claims alleging defamation, libel, invasion of privacy, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement, or other theories based on the nature and content of the materials disseminated through the services. Certain of our services include content generated by users of our online services. Although this content is not generated by us, claims of defamation or other injury may be made against us for that content. Any costs incurred as a result of this potential liability may harm our business.
FINANCIAL RISKS
Financial risks relate to our ability to meet financial obligations and mitigate exposure to financial impacts to our businesses or our offerings. Financial risks arise from the following: seasonality; excessive product returns; unanticipated changes in income tax rates; adverse global macro-economic conditions; fluctuations in our net income; indebtedness; and the fluctuation of our stock price.
Our tax business is highly seasonal and our quarterly results could fluctuate significantly.
Our tax offerings have significant seasonal patterns. Revenue from income tax preparation products and services is heavily concentrated during November through April. This seasonality has caused significant fluctuations in our quarterly financial results. Our financial results may also fluctuate from quarter to quarter and year to year due to a variety of factors, including factors that may affect the timing of revenue recognition. These include changes to our offerings that result in the inclusion or
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exclusion of ongoing services; changes in product pricing strategies or product sales mix; the timing of the availability of federal and state tax forms from taxing agencies and the ability of those agencies to receive electronic tax return submissions; changes in customer behavior; and the timing of our discontinuation of support for older product offerings. Other factors that may affect our quarterly or annual financial results include the timing of acquisitions, divestitures, and goodwill and acquired intangible asset impairment charges. Any fluctuations in our operating results may adversely affect our stock price.
If actual product returns exceed returns reserves our future financial results may be harmed.
We ship more desktop software products to our distributors and retailers than we expect them to sell, in order to reduce the risk that distributors or retailers may run out of products. This is particularly true for our tax products, which have a short selling season and for which returns occur primarily in our fiscal third and fourth quarters. Like many software companies that sell their products through distributors and retailers, we have historically accepted significant product returns. We establish reserves against revenue for product returns in our financial statements based on estimated returns and we closely monitor product sales and inventory in the retail channel in an effort to maintain adequate reserves. In the past, returns have not differed significantly from these reserves. However, if we experience actual returns that significantly exceed reserves, it may result in lower net revenue.
Unanticipated changes in our income tax rates may affect our future financial results.
Our future effective income tax rates may be favorably or unfavorably affected by unanticipated changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, by changes in our stock price, or by changes in tax laws or their interpretation. In addition, we are subject to the continuous examination of our income tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service and other tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. These continuous examinations may result in unforeseen tax-related liabilities, which may harm our future financial results.
Adverse global economic conditions could harm our business and financial condition.
Adverse macroeconomic developments could negatively affect our business and financial condition. Adverse global economic events have caused, and could, in the future, cause disruptions and volatility in global financial markets and increased rates of default and bankruptcy, and could impact consumer and small business spending. While we have historically performed well in economic downturns, there is no guarantee that we would continue to perform well in future adverse macroeconomic conditions. In particular, because the majority of our revenue is derived from sales within the U.S., economic conditions in the U.S. have an even greater impact on us than companies with a more diverse international presence. Challenging economic times could cause potential new customers not to purchase or to delay purchasing of our products and services, and could cause our existing customers to discontinue purchasing or delay upgrades of our existing products and services, thereby negatively impacting our revenues and future financial results. Decreased consumer spending levels could also reduce credit and debit card transaction processing volumes causing reductions in our payments revenue. Poor economic conditions and high unemployment have caused, and could in the future cause, a significant decrease in the number of tax returns filed, which may have a significant effect on the number of tax returns we prepare and file. In addition, weakness in the end-user consumer and small business markets could negatively affect the cash flow of our distributors and resellers who could, in turn, delay paying their obligations to us, which could increase our credit risk exposure and cause delays in our recognition of revenue or future sales to these customers. Any of these events could harm our business and our future financial results.
Amortization of acquired intangible assets and impairment charges may cause significant fluctuation in our net income.
Our acquisitions have resulted in significant expenses, including amortization and impairment of acquired technology and other acquired intangible assets, and impairment of goodwill. Total costs and expenses in these categories were $14 million in fiscal 2017; $34 million in fiscal 2016; and $339 million in fiscal 2015, of which $149 million was classified as discontinued operations. Although under current accounting rules goodwill is not amortized, we may incur impairment charges related to the goodwill already recorded and to goodwill arising out of future acquisitions. We test the impairment of goodwill annually in our fourth fiscal quarter or more frequently if indicators of impairment arise. The timing of the formal annual test may result in charges to our statement of operations in our fourth fiscal quarter that may not have been reasonably foreseen in prior periods. The total costs and expenses for fiscal 2015 included goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges of $297 million, of which $149 million was classified as discontinued operations. At
October 31, 2017
, we had
$1.3 billion
in goodwill and
$18 million
in net acquired intangible assets on our balance sheet, both of which may be subject to impairment charges in the future. New acquisitions, and any impairment of the value of acquired intangible assets, may have a significant negative impact on our future financial results.
We have $475 million in debt outstanding under the term loan and have drawn
$400 million
on our unsecured revolving credit facility and may incur other debt in the future, which may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results.
On February 1, 2016, we entered into a master credit agreement with certain institutional lenders for a new five-year credit facility in an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion. The master credit agreement includes a $500 million unsecured term
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loan and a $1 billion unsecured revolving credit facility that will expire on February 1, 2021. As of
October 31, 2017
,
$475 million
was outstanding on the term loan and
$400 million
was outstanding under the revolving credit facility. We may use the proceeds of any advances against the credit facility for general corporate purposes, including future acquisitions and share repurchases.
This debt may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results by, among other things:
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increasing our vulnerability to downturns in our business, to competitive pressures and to adverse economic and industry conditions;
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requiring the dedication of a portion of our expected cash from operations to service our indebtedness, thereby reducing the amount of expected cash flow available for other purposes, including capital expenditures and acquisitions; and
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limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our businesses and our industries.
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Our current unsecured revolving credit facility imposes restrictions on us, including restrictions on our ability to create liens on our assets and the ability of our subsidiaries to incur indebtedness, and require us to maintain compliance with specified financial ratios. Our ability to comply with these ratios may be affected by events beyond our control. In addition, our short- and long-term debt includes covenants that may adversely affect our ability to incur certain liens or engage in certain types of sale and leaseback transactions. If we breach any of the covenants under our short- and long-term debt or our unsecured revolving credit facility and do not obtain a waiver from the lenders, then, subject to applicable cure periods, any outstanding indebtedness may be declared immediately due and payable.
In addition, changes by any rating agency to our credit rating may negatively impact the value and liquidity of both our debt and equity securities. If our credit ratings are downgraded or other negative action is taken, the interest rate payable by us under our unsecured revolving credit facility may increase. In addition, any downgrades in our credit ratings may affect our ability to obtain additional financing in the future and may affect the terms of any such financing.
Our stock price may be volatile and your investment could lose value.
Our stock price is subject to changes in recommendations or earnings estimates by financial analysts, changes in investors’ or analysts’ valuation measures for our stock, our credit ratings and market trends unrelated to our performance. Furthermore, speculation in the press or investment community about our strategic position, financial condition, results of operations, business or security of our products, can cause changes in our stock price. These factors, as well as general economic and political conditions and the timing of announcements in the public market regarding new products, product enhancements or technological advances by our competitors or us, and any announcements by us of acquisitions, major transactions, or management changes may adversely affect our stock price. Further, any changes in the amounts or frequency of share repurchases or dividends may also adversely affect our stock price. A significant drop in our stock price could expose us to the risk of securities class actions lawsuits, which may result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention and resources, which may adversely affect our business.
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