Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc., which publishes CPA Exam review books, has moved its test prep online via a partnership with Acadient, a Boston-based developer and distributor of online learning.

Tax-prep conglomerate H&R Block and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now have teamed up in a partnership to help boost awareness of the Earned Income Tax credit and to reduce filing costs for low-income taxpayers. Block and Acorn will canvass some 65 cities in a door-to-door joint education effort aimed at low-income filers who may be eligible for the EITC. The effort will also highlight the costs and speed factors associated with refund options, and also work to hasten the elimination of costly fees connected with refund anticipation loans. Ironically, the Block-Acorn alliance comes exactly one year after Acorn held rallies at Block offices protesting what they perceived were aggressive sales of the company's RALs, which they claim unfairly targeted lower-income taxpayers.

James Simpson, CPA and owner of Indianapolis-based Financial Technologies & Management, remembers all too well the continuing professional education classes of recent years.

Accounting, finance, and banking professionals who hold a professional credential of some type, on average earned 30 percent more than employees in those fields working without a credential, according to a survey by CareerBank.com. Credentialed finance professionals, who comprised roughly half the survey's 2,800 respondents, earned on average $70,096, compared to $53,748 for those without any credential. Of the credentialed respondents participating in the survey, more than 62 percent held the CPA designation. The average annual salary for CPAs participating in the survey increased just over 2 percent from 2003, to $73,295. CPA salaries were not broken down by career longevity, but three-quarters of all respondents had been working in their current position for less than five years. Those in their positions more than five years earned 25 percent more ($75,858 vs. $69,791) than those tenured for under five years. In gender-specific terms, the average 2004 salary for women respondents rose nearly $2,000, to $52,012 while the average salary for men dipped $190 to $69,848. The was the fourth annual salary survey of finance professionals for CareerBank.com, a HR Web site for accounting, finance, and banking posts.

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Contact information for the vendors of the Accounting Today 2005 Top 100 Products and Ones to Watch.AccountantsWorld

By almost anyone's accounting, accounting is making a comeback.

AICPA adopts outsourcing ethics

Leaders of the American Institute of CPAs' national effort to improve financial literacy among the American public called on members of the institute's ruling Council to get involved as the institute unveiled a consumer Web site tied to the educational initiative.

Thomson Tax & Accounting has acquired Gear Up Inc., a Vancouver, Wash. provider of training and continuing professional education for tax and accounting practitioners.