CCH Canadian Ltd., a Toronto-based provider of professional tax information and tax preparation software, has purchased the software and other assets of Taxbyte from FLS Research Inc. of Toronto. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Taxbyte customers will continue to receive product support for their software products through the end of November 2001. However, CCH has implemented a customer transition program to aid users of Taxbyte in moving to CCH’s Cantax and Taxprep tax compliance software products.

“We’re very pleased to welcome this new group of Canadian tax professionals to our CCH tax services,” said James de Gaspe Bonar, president and CEO, CCH Canadian. “We’re fully committed to providing them with Canada’s most comprehensive range of integrated research and compliance solutions, including the best-selling tax software, authoritative tax research and quality financial planning tools.”

As part of the Taxbyte customer transition program, CCH will provide users with free conversion software to help ensure a seamless migration of client data from Taxbyte to CCH Cantax or CCH Taxprep.

In addition, CCH will provide Taxbyte customers with a one-year price protection guarantee. Taxbyte users will pay the same for a comparable 2001 tax season Cantax package as they paid for their 2000 tax season Taxbyte product. Also, CCH will provide helpful training programs for those making the transition to the CCH software.

“We understand that busy professionals need to make this transition as easily and simply as possible,” said de Gaspe Bonar. “Since the sale included the Taxbyte software code, we feel that we can accomplish this with minimal disruption to their businesses.”

Taxbyte has approximately 4,000 installations that license the company’s English-language software products.