When Thomson Reuters acquired TaxSimple, the biggest surprise was that the latter company's products weren't folded. Instead, TaxSimple is going to be in the market with 2010 versions of its tax software. And the reason that this was a typical case of buying a competing packages for the user base is captured in the use of the word "value" to describe where TaxSimple fits into the Thomson line. Read more...

A California accounting firm, KMJ Corbin & Co., has been censured by the SEC and two partners, Kendall G. Merkley and Anthony J. Price, suspended from SEC practice. The charges stemmed from their audits of the financial statements of Home Solutions of America who America whose officers last year settled charges they manipulated results to inflate revenue by more than $40 million through the use of such tools as bogus  invoices, phony accounting entries and backdated contracts. The firm, which has offices in Costa Mesa and San Diego, must also provide each audit professional with 24 hours of training in audit and fraud detection.

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