The Internal Revenue Service seems to be getting more bank for the buck in terms of convictions. In its annual report, the agency shows that over the last two years, while the number of investigation indictments for tax crimes have fallen shaprly, the number of convictions have gone up in the categories of questionable refunds, identity theft and abuse preparers.

Intuit executives received hefty hikes in compensation for the year ended July 30. The exception was CEO Brad Smith, who saw his pay fall to slightly more than $16 million for the most recently ended year, a decline of 3.2 percent from $16.5 million for fiscal 2014. Otherwise, the heads of the software company's two divisions and its CFO received double-digit increases, largely as the result of stock awards.

The Internal Revenue Service has raised the safe harbor threshold for expensing some capital items to $2,500 from $500. The change affects businesses that do not maintain audited financial statements and applies to qualifying items substantiated by an invoice. The threshold takes effect in tax year 2016.

Wolters Kluwer, CCH Small Firm Services has released product bundles for its cloud-based practice management system and two tax preparation software packages. The practice management element can now be purchased with TaxWise and with two bundled versions of the company's ATX applications.