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Avalara, a sales-and-use tax service provider, took the wraps off a program that it has been discussing since the beginning of 2012. The online company formally rolled out its Accounting and Advisory Services Program this week The program is intended to help the accounting profession serve clients by educating them about sales-and-use tax issues and providing resources and tools so that can provide professional assistance in this area.

New subscribers will no longer have efiling and electronic payment of federal tax and forms included in the Intuit Online Payroll Basic service effective May 1. Existing subscribers continue to have those services bundled into their plan as the company announced two payroll subscription changes.

Australian software vendor Reckon says that it will not renew an agreement under which it has been selling Quicken and QuickBooks down under since 2010. The agreement expires on February 14, 2014. After that, Reckon can continue developing products based on Intuit technology, but cannot sell them under the Intuit brand, the company said in a filing with the Australian Stock Exchange. Reckon says it will save about $6.2 million annually in royalty payments.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has acquired BizActions, which offers digital newsletter and Web marketing services for accounting firms in North America. Terms were not disclosed.That deal follows Thomson's purchase last month of Emochila, which markets website services.