Tax Software 2007

Accounting Technology, October, 2007 by Introduction Robert W. Scott; Individual company stories Alexandra DeFelice, Antoinette Alexander and Robert W. Scott

The face of professional tax preparation is changing and is likely to evolve significantly over the next five years as technology developments revolutionize some of the most basic processes in preparation and reviewing, outside of the already automated calculation itself.

The last few seasons have been dominated by vendors adding states, forms and incremental improvement in features. But the 2007 software is the beginning of a new era.

The trends raise the likelihood of the following:

Data entry will be increasingly automated, although it's not clear which technology will win.

Portals will become the preferred way tax and other confidential documents will be distributed.

Outsourced tax preparation is getting an uptick because of the tight...