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.