The ink was hardly dry on the April 2008 merger of business information giants Reuters Group and The Thomson Corp. when the new combined entity embarked on an aggressive campaign to beef up its Tax & Accounting business, including the acquisition of GRC heavyweight Paisley in January of this year. The spending spree continued this week with Thomson Reuters’s announcement that it plans to snap up Abacus Enterprise, a suite of tax software products, from Deloitte LLP.

The London-based Abacus business provides Web-based software that’s used by customers to determine and comply with local tax laws and to remit income taxes and value-added taxes (VAT), according to Thomson Reuters’s press release. Roy Martin, CEO of Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting, noted that worldwide convergence of financial reporting standards and tax policies provides “an opportunity for players with a global perspective to knit together global products with local products” in comments to the Financial Times.

“Taxes are not going away but are increasing,” Martin adds. “Complexity of tax regimes is increasing and scrutiny by regulatory authorities on tax compliance is increasing as countries are looking for ways to grow revenue more than ever.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Thomson Reuters plans to integrate the Abacus product set into its current tax and compliance solutions, including the popular OneSource tax portal, TaxStream, Checkpoint, and Paisley. ###