Practice Management

The Kansas Department of Revenue warned that it may take up to 16 weeks to process state tax returns filed on paper as the state copes with budget cuts.

Payroll giant ADP has agreed to buy DO2 Technologies, a Calgary, Alberta-based company that provides electronic invoicing software.

H&R Block has agreed to repay between $11.4 million and $19.4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over the tax prep chain’s marketing of high-fee individual retirement accounts to customers.

LECG shareholders have approved the consulting firm’s merger with Smart Business Advisory & Consulting along with a related proposal for LECG to receive a $25 million cash investment from Smart’s majority shareholder, Great Hill Partners.

CBIZ Inc. and its affiliated CPA firm Mayer Hoffman McCann have acquired Goldstein Lewin & Co., a South Florida accounting and financial services provider.

Registration, testing and continuing education are at the core of the requirements proposed by the Internal Revenue Service in response to calls for greater oversight of paid tax preparers.

Jackson Hewitt has signed an amended agreement with Republic Bank & Trust to act as a partner for refund anticipation loans after the tax prep chain’s previous partner, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, was forced to stop providing RALs.

Southeast regional accounting firm Carr Riggs & Ingram has combined with New Orleans-based Roth Murphy Sanford, expanding CRI’s footprint to six states.

The Internal Revenue Service has expanded the time window to 120 days during which it may share a taxpayer’s tax return information with third parties, based upon a taxpayer’s written disclosure authorization.

IMGCAP(1)]Technological advances have made direct deposits of refunds, paychecks and other items enormously popular in recent years. The system normally works very well, and can usually be relied upon as a way to transfer money quickly and easily between parties. However, if something goes wrong at any point in the process, my experience has shown that correcting the matter can be almost impossible, and chances are very good that someone will lose his money.