The final story awaits the conclusion of this tax season. But the developments over the last two years point to rougher times ahead for independent tax preparers. These are the businesses that are not part of a tax chain or a CPA firm.

Sales and use taxes could hardly be a more simple matter. Calculate your total sales for the month, multiply by the tax rate for the jurisdiction (usually city, county and state) and remit to amount due. If you somehow forget to do it, or miscalculate the amount, that jurisdiction will happily double-check your work and correct your math.

A federal court has permanently barred Lakeisha Pearson of Birmingham, Ala., from preparing federal tax returns for others. Pearson operated under the names,  LGS Tax Service, PositiveEndeavors and  AGA Tax Service. Pearson was ordered to provide a copy of the injunction that bars her work to each person for whom she has prepared a federal tax return since Jan. 1, 2008.

While the average professional tax preparer is not using a cloud-based system this season, the Internet is still having a major impact on tax preparation. And that is because web-based tools, particularly portals, are pushing much of the rest of the process online.

The Internal Revenue System shut down the Modernized EFile system yesterday, January 17, on the first day of efiling. The official reason was that the IRS needed to tune the system. It was supposed to be back in operation today, but that had not happened as of this morning, according to a post on a Drake Software blog.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has acquired Dr Tax, a Canadian company that makes income tax preparation software for accounting firms and consumers. Terms were not disclosed. Thomson says the Canadian company markets DT Max, a line of tax compliance software that is used by more than 3,000 Canadian firms. It also has the UFile and Impôt Expert consumer tax line sthat are sold through retail outlets.

There are lots of events that happen once and only once every year: Holidays like Thanksgiving, Birthdays like yours, and Sports like the Super Bowl. The Consumer Electronics Show almost falls within the once and only once category.

Xero has been accelerating its effort to enlist accountants and small businesses in the United States. And while it already has firms that have signed up as part of its channel, the New Zealand-based company, which markets a web-based accounting application, has been getting more visibility since former Sage executive Jamie Sutherland joined as president of the U.S. operation.

Sage North America has placed its Act and Peachtree direct sales operations under a single executive. The reorganization resulted in both efforts being placed under Manny Sandhu, an eight-year Sage veteran, as VP for both.

Intuit says its practice management software will have releases that start after tax season. And while the product has been in field tests with about 2,000 firms, its general release is about a year later than the company had planned early in 2011.

Build Your Firm, an accounting marketing and website development company that serves accounting firms, has formed a partnership with ShareFile, which provides secure file sharing and exchanging to those accounting operations. The partnership supports cross promotion of complementary products.

Fujitsu's Kim Hogan, Business Development Manager, talks about their mobile and network scanners for accountants.

Bob Scott talks with Francesca Zelasko of SurePayroll about their accountant payroll reselling programs.

Bob Scott, talks with Fresh Books about their new Accountants Program and how they can refer and consult to their small business clients.