The need to deal with Spanish-speaking clients could force more tax software to accommodate multiple languages.

Manuel Alvarez, president and CEO of New America Software, stopped by the offices today to talk about MultiTax, the bilingual tax prep software marketed by his company, formerly known as Latino Tax Software. Alvarez sees all kinds of possibilities for bilingual software, and he plans to expand into other areas beyond filling out tax forms. The company may soon begin marketing bilingual software for filling out mortgage applications, immigration forms, property and casualty insurance claims, and health insurance and life insurance forms. Alvarez has also been working with the IRS on doing electronic filing in Spanish. He was in town for an IRS conference, in fact.

As the U.S. becomes more ethnically diverse, the need to serve clients in their native languages will become more of a necessity. The Latino population in the U.S. is expected to increase from 42 million in 2005 to 128 million in 2050, going from 14 percent of the U.S. population to 29 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s a lot of clients to serve, and a big potential market for accounting and tax services.