TaxSlayer, a leading online and professional tax and financial services technology company, announced its purchase of a 40,000-square-foot building in Downtown Augusta within the city's growing Innovation Zone. The building at 945 Broad Street will become the company's headquarters and Innovation and Technology Campus, following a major renovation which will create a collaboration-centered workspace design. Work on the building is expected to begin in October 2017.

"This new building is both a testament to our rapid growth as a technology company and our commitment to Augusta," said Brian Rhodes, President and CEO, TaxSlayer. "We want to create a culture that drives innovation to help make our customers' lives easier. The building design will be focused on inspiring our product, marketing, and customer experience teams to create breakthrough new services and attract top talent to the city, which is another reason why we're excited to be part of Augusta's technology boom."

The company's senior leadership, product, technology and marketing teams will be relocating to the new campus in the heart of downtown Augusta. TaxSlayer's customer service teams will take over the current building in Evans, Columbia County, Georgia, which will become TaxSlayer's Customer Excellence Center. Between the two buildings, TaxSlayer will be able to accommodate over 600 total employees across the Augusta metro area.  

In addition, TaxSlayer is reporting record growth in tax e-files, which will exceed 10 million state and federal returns for 2017. This growth in e-files represents a 200% increase over the past three years. To accommodate the rapid growth of its business, the company plans to hire nearly 300 local workers during the tax season of December through April to support the firm's multiple business lines.

Inclusion in Augusta's Innovation Zone will place TaxSlayer alongside Augusta University, who recently broke ground on their Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center. Additionally, Augusta residents will soon have access to a co-working and technology innovation space designed to help incubate start-ups from Augusta and across the country. The metro Augusta area already employs about 13,000 cyber and IT workers, with over 10,000 as part of the U.S. Army Cyber Command Headquarters at Fort Gordon.