The decline in the number of returns received by the Internal Revenue Service this year led to a drop in income at Republic Bancorp for the first quarter ended March 31.

Tax season 2017 took a step backward as it went into the last weekend. After a season marked by week-by-week improvement, most figures from the Internal Revenue Service for the season through April 14 fell behind the corresponding period ended April 15, 2016.

The California Society of CPAs was among nine organizations recently recognized for their implementation and use of Abila software. The Abila Excellence Award was presented to those organizations at the Austin, Texas-based company's Abila User and Developer Conference.