The number of professional tax units sold by Intuit, which markets the Lacerte and ProSeries software packages, dropped for the second straight year, falling to 95,000 for the second quarter ended January 31, down from 97,000 a year earlier and 98,000 for the same quarter in 2007. Meanwhile revenue for those product lines dropped to $124 million for the most recently ended quarter, down $133 million a year earlier. Read more...

In a year in which its chief competitor, CCH,  launched a new research platform, Thomson Reuters said its own Checkpoint system had its best month of sales in the product's history. That came as Thomson Reuters reported revenue for its tax and accounting business rose by 9 percent while the unit's operating profit dropped by one percent for the year ended Dec. 31, 2009. Read more...

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - While its major competitor, H&R Block, was reporting a drop in the number of tax returns filed, Liberty Tax Service said it had a 10.2 percent increase in the number of tax returns filed as of February 15 and a 28.1 percent increase in revenue. That was accompanied by a 3 percent increase  in returns for same store sales and a 21.2 percent increase in revenue. That came after Block reported a 6.5 percent decrease in returns the same day.