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The line from Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band was swirling around in my head, both because it's a good tune, and because the signs are out there that things are picking up. Or as an executive from one software company said, things have stopped getting worse.

And it ought to be getting better for tax and accounting professionals. Last week, Tom Glocer, CEO of Thomson Reuters, pointed out the obvious: that a lot of changes are being proposed to tax laws and the proposals by themselves generate business as they put firms to work researching. Actual law changes are always good for this market and the next two years are going to be full of opportunities generated from those changes. Glocer's company itself was seeing more business being driven by the looming changes.

Last week, Intuit CEO Brad Smith said his company foresees no increase in the number of tax returns filed for tax year 2009. That applied to the TurboTax business, but it's hard not to believe it extends to professionally prepared 1040 returns. Intuit itself sees modest growth for its fiscal year that ends July 31, 2010. It's not great, but it is growth. The Small Business Group, its QuickBooks operations, is expected to have 4 percent to 8 percent revenue growth for the current year. The Accounting Professionals segment, which includes the ProSeries and Lacerte product lines, are forecast to have 3 percent to 7 percent growth. That's pretty good for what has not been a high-growth market for some time.

It’s far from being time to break out the party hats. But it is time to smile just a little.

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