Republic Bancorp, which picked up a lot of the slack when Santa Barbara Bank & Trust was forced from the refund loan business, plans to be highly selective in choosing which customers it works with. And chairman and CEO Steve Trager said in a Webcast this week that it has few worries about replacing any customers that might exit the business and that remark appeared to cover two national tax chains.

JTH Tax, which owns the Liberty Tax operations, turned in an 8.7 increase in revenue for the year ended April 30, reversing the prior year's decline. And it was profitable, although its unsuccessful experience in offering an online tax preparation service took a dent out of the bottom line and net income fell by 9 percent from 2009. Still, the nation's third largest tax store franchisor had a far better year than its larger competitors H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt.

Intuit's directors apparently liked what they saw in the performance of CEO Brad Smith as they approved a nearly 19-percent raise in base salary, effective for the year ending April 30, 2011, and a 46 percent increase in bonus awarded for fiscal 2010. Although bonus and salary often have less value than stock and option awards as part of executive compensation, it was a good result for Smith, who completed his second complete fiscal year in April. And performance-based bonuses for all executives were generous.