Intuit Inc.: 3Q26 Recap: Tax Miss and Lower Payroll To Weigh On Shares

Research evidence excerpt

Intuit Inc.: 3Q26 Recap: Tax Miss and Lower Payroll To Weigh On Shares

Equity Research

U.S. Software

20 May 2026

Intuit Inc.

3Q26 Recap: Tax Miss and Lower

Payroll To Weigh On Shares

It will take time until INTU shareholders gain confidence INTU OVERWEIGHT

again. Tax suffered from lower units and some low end Unchanged

competition, and payroll came off strong comps. However, U.S. Software UnchangedPOSITIVE

the bigger issue, in our view, is management being very Price Target USD 443.00

bullish going into Q3 results, which created an expectations lowered -18% from USD 540.00

mismatch. Price (20-May-26) USD 383.93 Potential Upside/Downside +15.4%

Source: Bloomberg, Barclays Research

At face value, Q3 was mixed, though tax was specifically a disappointment. The issue here is a

mixture of expectations management (very bullish management team in March) and lower Market Cap (USD mn) 106175

industry units overall, which also impacted INTU. The result is tax growth of 7% YoY (vs 8% Shares Outstanding (mn) 276.55

guidance), but more importantly a downward revision to investor expectations for 9-10% YoY Free Float (%) 97.86

growth range. The Global Business Solution segment could not save the day either as lower 52 Wk Avg Daily Volume (mn) 2.5

payroll growth (miss to our numbers by about $35m), and ongoing weak growth at Dividend Yield (%) 1.25

Mailchimp, lead to only in-line results for this segment. These results are not a disaster, but they Return on Equity TTM (%) 23.46

don't really help to diffuse the AI debate. Hence, shares will like be lower in the short term, but Current BVPS (USD) 68.67

should recover when investors better understand the different moving pieces. We are lowering Source: Bloomberg

our price target to $443.

Price Performance Exchange-Nasdaq