Taxes have proven to be a big business in the United States, and not just for the state and federal government. According to Nielsen, tax services companies spent a total of $220 million on advertising in 2008, 11% more than the advertising spent in 2007.

Out of the total advertising dollars spent by tax companies, 78% , or $171 million, was spent by the top five companies.  Listed in order of spend, the top companies include: H&R Block (89.4 million), American Tax Relief (28.3 million), Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc (26.7 million), JKH Holding Co (19.2 million) and TMIRS Enterprises Ltd (TaxMasters) (7.2 million).

Top advertising spender H&R Block kept its advertising budget relatively flat from its 2007 spend. The number 2 spender American Tax Relief, which specializes in settling individual tax debts, showed the largest advertising growth at 97%.

Roughly $155 billion went to TV advertising, including cable TV (35% of total advertising), spot TV (18% of total advertising) and network TV (16% of total advertising). Spot and network radio combined accounted for 34.4 million (16% of total advertising). Only 6.4 million of tax services advertising (3% of total advertising spend) went to online advertising. With higher taxes that may come with the Obama administration, some experts predict that online advertising will increase in the coming years.

When performing a keyword search on Google for “do my taxes,” the top three sponsored results in order were TurboTax , H&R Block, and TaxACT. For Yahoo, the top sponsored results for the keyword “do my taxes” in order include TaxAct, H&R Block, TurboTax, and CompleteTax.