The Hawaii Tax Department is still working on its final reports for 2004 and 2005, but they show that the latest estimate of tax credits claimed in 2002 was $123 million and $143 million in 2003. Tax credits are available for a range of expenses and investments, covering the purchase of an infant car seat, to the making a movie.

The bandwagon for EXtensible Business Reporting Markup Language (XBRL), the rapidly-evolving Internet-based software code for financial reports, has added two new key technology members over the past week.Advertisement

A fledgling Internet-based tax preparation platform offering free software to tax preparers and an open source code to that software from which programmers could theoretically build other technologies key to the tax prep process, has attracted a handful of practitioner members and is discussing potential development opportunities with at least one of the tax prep industry’s top five software companies, according to the site’s founder, a CPA.“Providing an open source code format has never been done in tax preparation, but it has been done successfully in many other areas.

The Ohio Society of CPAs, in cooperation with the Ohio National Guard, on Tuesday launched Operation CPA, providing free tax preparation services from the Ohio Society of CPAs member volunteers to members of the Ohio Guard and reserve service members deployed outside Ohio.“The Ohio Society of CPAs and its members want to show support for the men and women in our armed services who are risking their lives for our country,” said Clarke Price, president and CEO of the Ohio Society.

Increasing the efficiency of the building permit process could add millions of dollars in tax revenues and significantly bolster the economic development of communities.

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Break-ups are big news. Less attention is paid to finding the right partner in the first place.

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, announced on Monday that the company had acquired the Property Tax Reference from Vertex Incorporated. The product will immediately be rebranded CCH Property Tax Reference as it joins CCH’s authoritative and popular line of state tax online, print and CD-ROM products for tax, accounting and compliance professionals.“CCH is committed to providing professionals with the most authoritative, comprehensive research resources available,” Angela Darrow, CCH product manager, said in a prepared statement.

It’s a new year and many clients start it off right by organizing financial files and “cleaning house.” The benefits of this are twofold: 1) They will gain a clearer idea of their current financial situation, and 2) They can form financial goals for their future.