With the refund market appearing more and more threatened, H&R Block has sued HSBC Bank claiming that the bank, which fund's the tax preparation companies loan programs, has failed to take steps that would enable Block to provide Refund Anticipation Loans during the upcoming tax season. That comes less than a week after Meta Financial says it has to get regulatory approval for expanding its income tax-based loan programs.

NEW YORK - In what looks like a lack of confidence in the management of its own consumer tax product, H&R Block said it would buy Second Story Holdings, which owns the TaxAct software, for $287.5 million in cash. Block will continue to market its At Home line, formerly known as Tax Cut, along with TaxAct, but the acquired unit's management will run the business.

Financial planning firm GilmanCiocia has agreed to indemnify its CEO and chief compliance officer for civil penalties levied against each by the SEC. At the same time, the company revealed its form 10-K that it had missed the deadline for paying part of a $450,000 civil penalty ordered as a result of the cases, which involved the fraudulent sale of variable annuities by some of its representatives to senior citizens. That information came as the company improved both its bottom line and revenue for the year ended June 30.

NEW YORK - Members of the American Institute of CPAs have approved changing the organization's bylaws to modernize admission requirements with 81.39 percent favoring the update. The 60-day voting period ended on October 8 with 70,388 in favor of the change and 16,096 opposed. The approval of two thirds of those voting was required to adopt the by-law amendment.