Microsoft has previewed Project Madeira, which introduces accounting within Office 365. Madeira, a code name, targets businesses with roughly 10 to 99 employees. The company says the cloud-based product, which does not have a public release date, will not compete with its Dynamics software products.

The results for the tax season fell behind the 2015 results at a rate that has continued to weaken over the last four weeks. The number of returns for the season through April 8 dropped to 107,452,000, down 3 percent from 110,754,000 for the year earlier through April 10, 2015. The number processed dropped by 3.2 percent for the season to date to 104,527,000 returns, off from 108,000,000 from last year's corresponding period.

Observers were hoping return totals would rise in the late stages of the tax season. Instead, the number of returns received, processed and electronically filed have worsened over the last three weeks of reports by the Internal Revenue Service. Returns received dropped 1.4 percent to 97,631,000 for the period ended April 1, compared to the corresponding period for tax season 2015 through April 3.