John Clendening, who became CEO of Blucora a year ago, received $4.8 million in compensation for 2016. Recent SEC filings show most of that amount came from $2.5 million in stock awards and $1.4 million in option awards. Blucora is the parent of TaxAct and H.D. Vest and named new CEOs to those operations this year. Neither was a named executive for 2016, but are for 2017.

The Internal Revenue Service this month will send letters to what is described as a "relatively small group of taxpayers" whose overdue federal tax accounts will be assigned to collection agencies. Those assigned to one of four agencies are taxpayers with multiple contacts from the IRS in previous years, whose tax bills remain unpaid.

The 2017 tax season is on a similar course to the 2016 season. Last year, filings for 2016 did not exceed 2015 until the last week of the 2016. filing season. For this yar's season through March 24, the number of returns received were behind last year by 4.7 percent. That compares to a negative 5.5 percent through March 17.