Practice Management

Liberty Tax Service reported a 20 percent increase in the number of tax returns prepared at its franchises for the 2007 fiscal year.

According to Vertex Inc.’s annual Sales Tax Rate Report, the average number of U.S. sales tax rate changes per year has grown by 28 percent since the late 1990s.Based on a comparison of the number of state, county, city and district sales tax rate changes during the six-year periods between 1995 and 2000, and 2001 and 2006, the study found that the average number of rate changes per year was 610 and 779, respectively. According to the report, the number of rate changes decreased for the earlier period, while the number of yearly rate changes fluctuated for the later period.

At first glance, the recent testimony of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr. before the Senate Finance Committee on ways to reduce the tax gap was fairly typical, in that he urged Congress to approve the Presidential-submitted budget with increased IRS funding, and to pass 16 legislative proposals aimed at narrowing the tax gap.

Global business intelligence software provider Business Objects S.A., provider of the Crystal Reports series, has agreed to acquire enterprise software publisher Cartesis for about $300 million in cash.

The leaders of the Senate Finance and the House Ways and Means Committees have reached agreement on a tax package aimed at providing nearly $5 billion in tax relief for small businesses.

AccountAbilities Inc., a provider of financial personnel staffing services, marketing services and management consulting services, announced that one of its partner firms has acquired a smaller staffing and consulting firm.

Eide Bailly LLP, North Dakota’s largest accounting firm, announced that it will merge with Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Henry Scholten & Co. LLP.

As expected, H&R Block Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its struggling Option One Mortgage Corp. lending arm, though unit subsidiary H&R Block Mortgage Corp. is not part of the deal.

The Senate Finance Committee didn’t get the answers it was hoping for during a hearing this week with Treasury Department representatives on how to reduce the tax gap.In testimony before the committee, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that Congress should focus its efforts on reducing the complexity of the tax code, as well as approving the entire budget request from the Internal Revenue Service and enacting the Treasury’s February legislative proposals that are backed by President Bush. Paulson said that in developing more than a dozen proposals to minimize the gap, the Treasury focused on changes that would come with minimal additional burdens.

Garden City, N.Y.-based Israeloff, Trattner & Co. CPAs PC has merged with its Long Island neighbor, Hempstead, N.Y.-based accounting and tax firm Bloom & Co. LLP.