News

Thomson Reuters has agreed to sell its healthcare business to Veritas Capital, a private equity firm, for $1.25 billion in cash. The deal would consummate a plan by Thomson that had been stalled last fall when the company decided market conditions were not right for getting an adequate price for the healthcare business.

2SS Holdings, the company that owned the TaxAct software line, was an extremely profitable operation that paid its owners large dividends. And perhaps that explains why after the courts blocked its sale to H&R Block, the company was quickly snapped up by InfoSpace in January. For the year ended September 30, the company had operating margins of 43.6 percent and that was down from more than 49 percent for each of the prior fiscal years.

Stephen A. Favato, a former partner in BDO Seidman's Woodbridge, N.J., office, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax crimes. Favato, a resident of Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., was found guilty in August 2010 by a federal jury of one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the Internal Revenue laws and one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of a false income tax return.

A federal grand jury has indicted Bruce King, owner of a Montgomery, Ala.-based tax preparation business, and four other preparers that worked at his firm. All five are charged with participating in a scheme to file false tax returns with four of them were charged with aggravated identity theft.