The first tax software company that I was using in 1990 to prepare income tax returns was bought out by Intuit, so I switched to a different tax software company instead of being captured by Intuit.  Then several years later Intuit bought out the tax software company that I had switched to.  My first two software companies were obviously making money on these deals but there was nothing in it for the software users.  At that time I chose to stay put with Intuit because I could see a pattern developing and I was learning that changing tax software every couple of years was costing me a lot of time.  In other words, if you can't beat them, join them. 

I was determined that if intuit got bought out by some rival tax software company that I needed to get paid to switch tax software.  So, starting back in December of 2000 I decided to start buying Intuit stock each year so that I could cash-in if intuit decided to cash-out on the software users like me.  I bought the first Intuit shares for under $25/share.  I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to do it to protect myself.  I have continued to purchase Intuit stock each year since 2000 with the idea that I can get paid if Intuit sells us out. 

I am happy that I haven't had to change tax software companies for a long period of time.  But I have taken note that Intuit is not putting forth the effort required to make the PS tax software a great product for some time now.  I'm not sure how much longer Intuit can operate in this manner and retain software renewals.