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 significant factors, events and uncertainties that make an investment in our securities risky, categorized solely for ease of reference as strategic, operational, legal and compliance, and financial risks. The following events and consequences could have a material adverse effect on our business, growth, prospects, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, liquidity, credit rating and reputation, and the trading price of our common stock could decline. These risks are not the only ones we face. We could also be affected by other events, factors or uncertainties that are presently unknown to us or that we do not currently consider to present significant risks to our business. These risks may be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused significant global economic instability and uncertainty. The manner in which we respond to future developments as well as our competitors’ reactions to those developments may affect our future operating results.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant economic instability and uncertainty and has had and may continue to have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic instability and uncertainty globally and has had a negative impact, and may in the future have a material adverse impact, on our business. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted our small business results as a significant number of small businesses have closed or scaled back their offerings, particularly in light of shelter-in-place and similar directives. The severity and duration of the pandemic's impact on our operational and financial performance are uncertain and will depend on many factors beyond our control. Potential and current negative impacts of the pandemic include, but are not limited to, the following:
•Reduction in customer demand for our products and services and level of financial institution partner participation on Credit Karma's platform, decreased consumer spending levels, reduced small business payment charge volumes and payrolls and potential decreases in the number of tax returns filed could materially harm our results of operations.
•The extension of federal and state tax filing deadlines for the 2019 tax year changed the seasonality of our business, making our revenue and operating results more difficult to predict. Any future regulatory decisions could further increase the difficulty of forecasting our revenue and operating results, which could cause our business to materially suffer.
•There are new and more frequent attempts by malicious third parties seeking to take advantage of the pandemic to fraudulently gain access to our systems, which could cause us to expend significant resources to remediate and could damage our reputation.
•Changes to our business operations and the operations of our third-party partners, such as increased use of videoconferencing, the shift to working from home, and the complexity of resuming operations in our offices, has introduced new security and execution risks that could cause us to experience substantial financial losses, lose the confidence of our customers and government agencies and harm our revenues and earnings.
•Potential disruption of services on which we rely to deliver our services to our customers, including our third-party customer success partners and financial institutions, could prevent us or our service providers from delivering critical services to our customers or accepting and fulfilling customer orders, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business or reputation.
•Increased, divergent and changing governmental regulations, such as shelter-in-place orders and closures of work facilities, schools, public buildings and businesses, could make it considerably more difficult to develop, enhance and support our products and services, which may cause our results of operations and financial condition to suffer.
•Failure to realize some or all of the anticipated benefits of our mergers and acquisitions activities for reasons related to the pandemic may cause us to experience losses that result in significant harm to our operating results or financial condition.
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•We may be unable to obtain financing in the current economic environment on terms that are favorable or acceptable to us, or at all, which could impair our cash flows and restrict our ability to execute on our strategic initiatives and react to changes in our business or the environment.
•As a result of financial hardship experienced by our customers related to the pandemic, we may experience higher than normal customer refunds and a significant increase in risk of collecting customer payments or loans receivable, which could harm our results of operations.
•There could be increased volatility in our stock price related to the pandemic, which could result in the loss of some or all of the value of an investment in Intuit.
These and other potential negative impacts relating to the COVID-19 pandemic are described further in the risk factors that follow.
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 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, tax and personal financial management customers.
We also face competition from companies with a variety of business models, including increased competition from providers of free offerings, particularly in our tax, accounting, payments and personal finance platform 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, other providers of free offerings may 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 potential competition from the public sector, where we face the risk of federal and state taxing authorities proposing revenue raising 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, in December 2019, the agreement governing the program was amended to eliminate the pledge by the IRS that it will not offer a duplicative or competing service. Under this program, the IRS has worked with private industry to provide more than 56 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 the government or individual users. 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 2021. Recently, we have become the subject of certain legal proceedings and regulatory inquiries relating to the provision and marketing of the product that we offer under the IRS Free File Program. While we believe that the allegations in these proceedings are without merit, the proceedings may decrease the government’s support of such program and increase the likelihood that such program is terminated. If the Free File Program were to be terminated or the IRS were to enter the software development and return preparation space, the federal government could become a publicly funded direct competitor of the U.S. tax services industry and of Intuit. Government funded services that curtail or eliminate the role of taxpayers in preparing their own taxes 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 software offerings and successfully introduce new and enhanced products, services and business models.
We operate in industries that are characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and frequent new product introductions. 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 requires us to devote significant resources.
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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 to provide them with value, 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, our customers may not perceive value in the additional benefits and services we offer beyond our free offering and may choose not to pay for those additional benefits or we may be unsuccessful in increasing customer adoption of these offerings or our risk profile may change, resulting in loss of revenue.
We have devoted significant resources to develop products and services for users of mobile 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 mobile 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 mobile 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. Further, legislation or regulatory changes may mandate changes in our products that make them less attractive to users.
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 cannot 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, domain names 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 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.
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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, members of our workforce, agents, third parties we rely on, or our users, may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brands. Our brand value also depends on our ability to provide secure and trustworthy products and services as well as our ability to protect and use our customers’ data in a manner that meets their expectations. In addition, a security incident which results in unauthorized disclosure of our customers’ sensitive data could cause material reputational harm. 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 and could also reduce our stock price.
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, technologies and talent that complement our strategic direction, both in and outside the United States. Acquisitions, such as our recently completed acquisition of Credit Karma, involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:
•inability to successfully integrate the acquired technology, data assets and operations into our business and maintain uniform standards, controls, policies, and procedures;
•inability to realize synergies expected to result from an acquisition;
•disruption of our ongoing business and distraction of management;
•challenges retaining the key employees, customers, resellers and other business partners of the acquired operation;
•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;
•unidentified issues not discovered in our due diligence process, including product or service quality issues, intellectual property issues and legal contingencies;
•failure to successfully further develop an acquired business or technology and any resulting impairment of amounts currently capitalized as intangible assets;
•risks associated with businesses we acquire or invest in, which may differ from or be more significant than the risks our other businesses face;
•in the case of foreign acquisitions and investments, the impact of particular economic, tax, currency, political, legal and regulatory risks associated with specific countries; and
•to the extent we use debt to fund acquisitions or for other purposes, our interest expense and leverage will increase significantly, and to the extent we issue equity securities as consideration in an acquisition, current shareholders’ percentage ownership and earnings per share will be diluted.
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:
•inability to find potential buyers on favorable terms;
•failure to effectively transfer liabilities, contracts, facilities and employees to buyers;
•requirements that we retain or indemnify buyers against certain liabilities and obligations;
•the possibility that we will become subject to third-party claims arising out of such divestiture;
•challenges in identifying and separating the intellectual property and data to be divested from the intellectual property and data that we wish to retain;
•inability to reduce fixed costs previously associated with the divested assets or business;
•challenges in collecting the proceeds from any divestiture;
•disruption of our ongoing business and distraction of management;
•loss of key employees who leave us as a result of a divestiture; and
•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.
In addition, any acquisition or divestiture that we announce may not be completed if closing conditions are not satisfied. 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. In particular, if the integration of Credit Karma's business is not completed within
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the expected time frame, such delay may materially and adversely affect the synergies and other benefits that we expect to achieve as a result of the Credit Karma acquisition and could result in additional integration-related costs or loss of revenue. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19, adverse changes in market conditions, additional integration-related costs and other factors that may be exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19, such as the failure to realize some or all of the anticipated benefits of the Credit Karma acquisition, may cause the acquisition to be dilutive to Intuit’s operating earnings per share beyond the first fiscal year after close. Any dilution of our non-GAAP diluted earnings per share could cause the price of shares of Intuit Common Stock to decline or grow at a reduced rate.
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: potential security incidents; privacy and cybersecurity concerns relating to online 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.
Security incidents, improper access to or disclosure of our data or customers’ data, or other cyberattacks on our systems could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business.
We host, collect, use and retain large amounts of sensitive and personal customer and workforce data, including credit card information, tax return information, bank account numbers, login credentials and passwords, personal and business financial data and transactions data, social security numbers and payroll information, as well as our confidential, nonpublic business information. We use commercially available security technologies and security and business controls to limit access to and use of such sensitive data. Although we expend significant resources to create security protections designed to shield this data against potential theft and security breaches, such measures cannot provide absolute security.
Our technologies, systems, and networks have been subject to, and are likely to continue to be the target of, cyberattacks, computer viruses, worms, social engineering, malicious software programs, insider threats, and other cybersecurity incidents that could result in the unauthorized release, gathering, monitoring, use, loss or destruction of sensitive and personal data of our customers and members of our workforce, or Intuit's sensitive business data or cause temporary or sustained unavailability of our software and systems. These types of incidents can be made by individuals, groups of hackers, and sophisticated organizations including state-sponsored organizations or nation-states themselves. Customers who 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 create vulnerabilities and make it more difficult for us to detect and prevent these kinds of attacks. We are increasingly incorporating open source software into our products. There may be vulnerabilities in open source software that make it susceptible to cyberattacks. In addition, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to sensitive information change frequently, and are 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. Although this is an industry-wide problem that affects software and hardware across platforms, it may increasingly affect 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.
Further, the security measures that we implement may not be able to prevent unauthorized access to our products and our customers’ account data. Third parties may fraudulently induce members of our workforce, customers, or users by social engineering means, such as email phishing, to disclose sensitive information in order to gain access to our systems. It is also possible that unauthorized access to or disclosure of customer data may occur due to inadequate use of security controls by our customers or members of our workforce. Accounts created with weak or recycled passwords could allow cyberattackers to gain access to customer data. Unauthorized persons could gain access to customer accounts if customers do not maintain effective access controls of their systems and software. In addition, we are experiencing new and more frequent attempts by third parties to use the COVID-19 pandemic to fraudulently gain access to our systems, such as through increased email phishing of our workforce.
Criminals may also use stolen identity information obtained outside of our systems to gain unauthorized access to our customers’ data. We have experienced such instances in the past and as the accessibility of stolen identity information increases, generally, we may experience further instances of unauthorized access to our systems through the use of stolen identity information of our customers or members of our workforce in the future. Further, our customers may choose to use the same user ID and password across multiple products and services unrelated to our products. Such customers’ login credentials may be stolen from products offered by third-party service providers unrelated to us and the stolen identity information may be used by a malicious third party to access our products, which could result in disclosure of confidential information. In addition, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have temporarily shifted nearly all our workforce from office locations to work from home environments, which increases our exposure to security-related risks due to operational changes, such as the increased use of videoconferencing.
Our efforts to protect data may also be unsuccessful due to software bugs (whether open source or proprietary code), break-ins, workforce member error or other threats that evolve.
Further, because we have created an ecosystem where customers can have one identity across multiple Intuit products, a security incident may give access to increased amounts of customer data. This may result in disclosure of confidential
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information, loss of customer confidence in our products, possible litigation, material harm to our reputation and financial condition, disruption of our or our customers’ business operations and a decline in our stock price. 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 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. Such perceived vulnerabilities could also seriously harm our business by tarnishing our reputation and brand and/or limiting the adoption of our products and services and could cause our stock price to decline.
Additionally, Credit Karma is subject to an order issued in 2014 by the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") that, among other things, requires maintenance of a comprehensive security program relating to the development and management of new and existing products and services and biannual independent security assessments for 20 years from the date of the order. Credit Karma’s failure to fulfill the requirements of the FTC’s order could results in fines, penalties, regulatory inquiries, investigations and claims, and negatively impact our business and reputation.
A cybersecurity incident affecting the third parties we rely on could expose us or our customers to a risk of loss or misuse of confidential information and significantly damage our reputation.
We depend on a number of third parties, including vendors, developers and partners who are critical to our business. We or our customers may grant access to customer data to these third parties to help deliver customer benefits, or to host certain of our and our customers' sensitive and personal 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 workforce, conduct reviews of partners, developers and vendors and use commercially available technologies to limit access to systems and data, it is possible that one or more of these individuals or third parties may misrepresent their intended use of data or may circumvent our controls, resulting in accidental or intentional disclosure or misuse of our customers’ or employees’ data. Further, while we conduct due diligence on these third parties with respect to their security and business controls, we may not have the ability to effectively monitor or oversee the implementation of these control measures. 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 security incident involving third parties whom we rely on 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; make our products more vulnerable to fraudulent activity; cause temporary or sustained unavailability of our software and systems; result in possible litigation, fines, penalties and damages; result in loss of customer confidence; cause material harm to our reputation and brands; lead to further regulation and oversight by federal or state agencies; cause adverse financial condition; and result in a reduced stock price.
Concerns about the current privacy and cybersecurity environment, generally, could deter current and potential customers from adopting our products and services and damage our reputation.
The continued occurrence of cyberattacks and data breaches on governments, businesses and consumers in general indicates that we operate in an external environment where cyberattacks 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 in which 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. Even if our products are not affected directly by such incidents, any such incident 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, online payments and lending 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 and lending businesses and is heightened while we are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with measures such as requiring nearly all of our workforce to work from home. 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 and lending offerings, governmental authorities may refuse to allow us to continue to offer such services, or these services may otherwise be adversely impacted, 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
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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 likelihood of any such error or misappropriation may increase as we accelerate the speed at which we process transactions. The systems supporting our business are comprised of multiple technology platforms that are sometimes 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 grow our online services, we become more dependent on the continuing operation and availability of our information technology and communications 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, and our disaster recovery planning may not account for all eventualities. We have designed a significant portion of our software and computer systems to utilize data processing and storage capabilities provided by public cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services. If any public cloud service that we use is unavailable to us for any reason, our customers may not be able to access certain of our cloud products or features, which could significantly impact our operations, business, and financial results.
Failure of our systems or those of our third-party service providers, may result in interruptions in our service and loss of data or processing capabilities, all of which may cause a loss in customers, refunds of product fees, material harm to our reputation and operating results.
Our tax businesses must effectively handle extremely heavy customer demand during critical peak periods, which typically occur from January until April of each year. We face significant risks in maintaining adequate service levels during these peak periods when 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, unexpected 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 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 are 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, health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and other events beyond our control. For example, our employees are largely concentrated in California and India, each of which have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subject to governmental actions designed to contain the spread of COVID-19, such as limitations on the size of gatherings, closures of work facilities, schools, public buildings and businesses, quarantines, lockdowns and travel restrictions. The closure of our facilities in those and other areas in which we operate, and other restrictions inhibiting our employees’ ability to access our facilities, have disrupted, and could continue to disrupt our business operations. We have also modified our business practices in connection with the pandemic (including employee travel, employee work locations and cancellation of physical participation in meetings, events and conferences), and we may take further actions as may be required by government authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers or third-party partners. There is no certainty that such measures will be sufficient to mitigate the risks posed by the virus, and that such measures will not impair our ability to perform critical functions. Any such measures could make it considerably more difficult to develop, enhance and support our products and services.
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We cannot predict how long any such measures will be in place and whether we would reimplement or enhance any such measures in one or more locations in order to respond to the effects of the pandemic or the rules, regulations or guidelines of any governmental authority. Moreover, the complexity of resuming operations in our offices could introduce new execution risks and we may experience longer-term disruptions to our operations, such as shifts in the work location preferences of our workforce for personal health and safety reasons.
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.
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 needs, 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.
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 with third-party partners. We rely on various third-party partners, including software and service providers, suppliers, credit reporting bureaus, 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. Credit Karma generates revenue from its relationships with financial institution partners, which are subject to particular risks that affect their willingness to offer their products on Credit Karma's platform, such as adverse economic conditions and an increasing complexity in the regulatory environment. 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.
Additionally, the business operations of our third-party partners have been and could continue to be disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken in response to it, including the pandemic’s effects on their third-party partners. If our third-party partners are unable to help us operate our business as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, our business and financial results may be negatively impacted. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has led credit card companies and lenders to offer fewer credit cards and loans, reduce their marketing activities generally, and, in many cases, decrease or suspend their activity on Credit Karma’s platform, all of which have impacted Credit Karma’s revenue. 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 at all, 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. Any violation of laws or implementation of practices regarded as unethical could result in 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, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, 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 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
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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.
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 and other key 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.
If we experience significant product accuracy or quality problems or delays in product launches, 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. Further, as we develop our platform to connect people to experts, such as connecting TurboTax customers with tax experts through our TurboTax Live offering, or connecting QuickBooks customers with bookkeepers through our QuickBooks Live offering, we face the risk that these experts may provide advice that is erroneous, ineffective or otherwise unsuitable. Any such deficiency in the advice given by these experts may cause harm to our customers, a loss of customer confidence in our offerings or harm to our reputation or financial results.
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:
•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;
•difficulties in developing, staffing, and simultaneously managing a large number of varying foreign operations as a result of distance, language, and cultural differences;
•stringent local labor laws and regulations;
•credit risk and higher levels of payment fraud;
•profit repatriation restrictions, and foreign currency exchange restrictions;
•geopolitical events, including natural disasters, acts of war and terrorism, and health emergencies, including divergent governmental responses thereto across the jurisdictions in which we operate;
•import or export regulations;
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•compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act, and laws and regulations of other jurisdictions prohibiting corrupt payments to government officials and other third parties;
•antitrust and competition regulations;
•potentially adverse tax developments;
•economic uncertainties relating to European sovereign and other debt;
•trade barriers and changes in trade regulations;
•political or social unrest, economic instability, repression, or human rights issues; and
•risks related to other government regulation or required compliance with local laws.
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, we cannot be sure that our employees, contractors and agents are in compliance with 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, including complex and evolving regulations relating privacy and data security; potential litigation; regulatory inquiries and intellectual property infringement claims.
Increased government regulation of our businesses, or changes to existing regulations, may harm our operating results.
The Company is subject to federal, state, local and international laws and regulations that affect the Company’s activities, including, without limitation, areas of labor, advertising, tax, financial services, data privacy and security, electronic funds transfer, money transmission, lending, 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, and other regulated activities. 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 privacy. As 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. For example, in April 2020, one of our subsidiaries became a Small Business Administration ("SBA") approved lender under the SBA’s recently established Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. 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. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal, state, local and foreign governmental authorities have imposed, and may continue to impose, protocols and restrictions intended to contain the spread of the virus, including limitations on the size of gatherings, closures of work facilities, schools, public buildings and businesses, quarantines, lockdowns and travel restrictions. Such restrictions have disrupted and may continue to disrupt our business operations and limit our ability to perform critical functions.
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 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.
Complex and evolving U.S. and international laws and regulation regarding privacy and data protection could result in claims, changes to our business practices, penalties or increased cost of operations or otherwise harm our business.
Regulations related to the provision of online services is evolving as federal, state and foreign governments continue to adopt new or modify existing laws and regulations addressing data privacy and the collection, processing, storage, transfer and use of data. This includes, for example, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the new California Consumer
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Protection Act (CCPA), which became effective on January 1, 2020. In our efforts to meet the GDPR, CCPA and other data privacy regulations, we have made and continue to make certain operational changes to our products and business practices. If we are unable to engineer products that meet these evolving requirements or help our customers meet their obligations under these or other new data regulations, we might experience reduced demand for our offerings. Further, penalties for non-compliance with these laws may be significant.
In addition, the evolution of global privacy treaties and frameworks has created compliance uncertainty and increased complexity. For example, the recent judicial invalidation of the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks that we relied on to transfer data has created additional compliance challenges for the transfer of EU personal data to the U.S. While we rely on alternative methods for the transfer of this data, ongoing legal challenges to these and other transfer mechanisms could cause us to incur costs or change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.
Other governmental authorities throughout the U.S. and around the world are considering similar types of legislative and regulatory proposals concerning data protection. Each of these privacy, security and data protection laws and regulations could impose significant limitations, require changes to our business, require notification to customers or workers 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 and may harm our future financial results. Additionally, any actual or alleged noncompliance with these laws and regulations could result in negative publicity and subject us to investigations, claims or other remedies, including demands that we modify or cease existing business practices, and expose us to significant fines, penalties and other damages. We have incurred, and may continue to incur, significant expenses to comply with existing privacy and security standards and protocols imposed by law, regulation, industry standards or contractual obligations.
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 may increase as our businesses evolve. 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 Part II, 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 give 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.
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Intuit Q2 Fiscal 2021 Form 10-Q
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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 subscription cancellations and product returns; unanticipated changes in income tax rates; adverse global macro-economic conditions; credit risks; fluctuations in our net income; indebtedness; and the fluctuation of our stock price.
Our tax business is highly seasonal and our quarterly results fluctuate significantly.
Our tax offerings have significant seasonal patterns. Revenue from income tax preparation products and services is typically heavily concentrated during November through April and, for the 2019 tax season, this seasonality was affected by the IRS’s extension of the federal tax filing deadline to July 15, 2020 and all states with personal income tax also extending their due dates, predominantly to July. 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 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 to our offerings that result in the inclusion or exclusion of ongoing services; changes in product pricing strategies or product sales mix; 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 customer refunds for our offerings exceed the amount we have reserved our future financial results may be harmed.
Like many software companies we refund customers for product returns and subscription cancellations. We establish reserves against revenue in our financial statements based on estimated customer refunds. We closely monitor this refund activity in an effort to maintain adequate reserves. In the past, customer refunds have not differed significantly from these reserves. However, if we experience actual customer refunds or an increase in risks of collecting customer payments, including as a result of financial hardship experienced by our customers related to the COVID-19 pandemic, that significantly exceed the amount we have reserved, it may result in lower net revenue.
Unanticipated changes in our income tax rates or other indirect tax 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. Prior to his election, President Biden proposed changes to the U.S. tax laws that would raise the rate on both domestic and foreign income and impose a new alternative minimum tax on book income. If any or all of these (or similar) proposals are ultimately enacted into law, they could have a negative impact on our effective tax rate. Foreign governments may enact tax laws that could result in further changes to global taxation and materially affect our financial position and results of operations. 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.
An increasing number of states and foreign jurisdictions have adopted laws or administrative practices, that impose new taxes on all or a portion of gross revenue or other similar amounts or impose additional obligations to collect transaction taxes such as sales, consumption, value added, or similar taxes. We may not have sufficient lead time to build systems and processes to collect these taxes properly, or at all. Failure to comply with such laws or administrative practices, or a successful assertion by such states or foreign jurisdictions requiring us to collect taxes where we do not, could result in material tax liabilities, including for past sales, as well as penalties and interest.
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. 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 our products and services, and could cause our existing customers to discontinue purchasing or delay upgrades of our existing products and services. In addition, the creditworthiness of Credit Karma’s members could be negatively impacted, reducing members' ability to qualify for credit cards and loans and decreasing participation on Credit Karma's platform by its financial institution partners. Any of the foregoing may negatively impact 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.
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Intuit Q2 Fiscal 2021 Form 10-Q
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The COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken in response to it have significantly increased economic and demand uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global recession and we cannot predict the extent to which existing small businesses will be able to survive such a downturn. Moreover, in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has increased significantly. Accordingly, the risks described in the paragraph above, including reduced customer demand for our products and services and reduced participation on Credit Karma's platform by its financial institution partners, decreased consumer spending levels and, in the future, decreases in the number of tax returns filed, may be more likely to materialize, any of which could harm our business and our future financial results.
We provide capital to small businesses, which exposes us to certain risk, and may cause us material financial or reputational harm.
We provide capital to qualified small businesses, which exposes us to the risk of our borrowers’ inability to repay such loans. We have also entered into credit arrangements with financial institutions to obtain the capital we provide under this offering. Any termination or interruption in the financial institutions’ ability to lend to us could interrupt our ability to provide capital to qualified small businesses. Further, our credit decisioning, pricing, loss forecasting, scoring and other models used to evaluate loan applications may contain errors or may not adequately assess creditworthiness of our borrowers, or may be otherwise ineffective, resulting in incorrect approvals or denials of loans. It is also possible that loan applicants could provide false or incorrect information. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken in response to it have had a significant impact on small businesses and may increase the likelihood that our borrowers are unable to repay their loans. If any of the foregoing events were to occur, our reputation, relationships with borrowers, collections of loans receivable and financial results could be harmed. In addition, one of our subsidiaries is a lender and a servicer under the PPP to support our small business customers and other eligible applicants during the pandemic. Our participation in this program exposes us to many of the risks described above and additional risks, such as borrower default, the SBA declining to forgive or honor its guarantee with respect to PPP loans and litigation or other disputes with borrowers or others related to our PPP activities.
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 $28 million in fiscal 2020; $26 million in fiscal 2019; and $21 million in fiscal 2018. 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. At January 31, 2021, we had $5.6 billion in goodwill and $3.4 billion in net acquired intangible assets on our condensed consolidated 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 incurred indebtedness and may incur other debt in the future, which may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results.
As of January 31, 2021, we had an aggregate of $2.4 billion of indebtedness outstanding under our credit facilities and our senior unsecured notes. Under the agreements governing our indebtedness, we are permitted to incur additional debt. This debt, and any debt that we may incur in the future, may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results by, among other things:
•increasing our vulnerability to downturns in our business, to competitive pressures and to adverse economic and industry conditions;
•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, share repurchases and acquisitions; and
•limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our businesses and our industries.
If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flow from operations in the future to service our debt, we may be required, among other things, to seek additional financing in the debt or equity markets, refinance or restructure all or a portion of our indebtedness, sell selected assets or reduce or delay planned capital, operating or investment expenditures. Such measures may not be sufficient to enable us to service our debt.
Additionally, the agreements governing our indebtedness impose restrictions on us and require us to comply with certain covenants. For example, our credit facilities restrict 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 credit facilities and the indenture governing our senior unsecured notes limit our ability to create liens our and subsidiaries’ assets and engage in sale and leaseback transactions. If we breach any of these covenants and do not obtain a waiver from the lenders or the noteholders, as applicable, then, subject to applicable cure periods, any or all of our outstanding indebtedness may be declared immediately due and payable. There can be no assurance that any refinancing or additional financing would be available on terms that are favorable or acceptable to us, if at all.
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Under the terms of our outstanding senior unsecured notes, we may be required to repurchase the notes for cash prior to their maturity in connection with the occurrence of certain changes of control that are accompanied by certain downgrades in the credit ratings of the notes. The repayment obligations under the notes may have the effect of discouraging, delaying or preventing a takeover of our company. If we were required to pay the notes prior to their scheduled maturity, it could have a negative impact on our cash position and liquidity and impair our ability to invest financial resources in other strategic initiatives.
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 negatively impact the terms of any such financing.
We cannot guarantee that our share repurchase program will be fully consummated or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value.
We have a stock repurchase program under which we are authorized to repurchase our common stock. The repurchase program does not have an expiration date and we are not obligated to repurchase a specified number or dollar value of shares. Our repurchase program may be suspended or terminated at any time. Even if our stock repurchase program is fully implemented, it may not enhance long-term stockholder value. Also, the amount, timing, and execution of our stock repurchase programs may fluctuate based on our priorities for the use of cash for other purposes and because of changes in cash flows, tax laws, and the market price of our common stock.
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, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, 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. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant volatility in the global financial markets, which has resulted in significant volatility in our stock price recently. 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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