tax season

shorter turnaround = happier tax clients

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woman with tablet wearing swimsuit sitting in beach lounge chair staring out at ocean

 

do you know your turnaround time?

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

todd rundgren sang, “i don’t want to work. i just wanna bang on the drum all day.”

i agree with half of that. i don’t want to work. however, i want someone else to bang on the drum all day for me. i’m not that ambitious.

the key to achieving hall of fame-level laziness is delegation.

more by frank stitely
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if i have no ambition to do anything, but want things to get done, someone else must do them. similarly, effective practice management is putting the right people in the right places accomplishing the right tasks at the right times. that’s a pretty damn good definition of effective laziness as well. there’s a subtle genius in that.
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four problems with ‘quick’ tax questions

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they’re not always so simple.

by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide

i keep a few of the one-volume tax guides in my office so i could look up a quick answer when i need to. recently a golf buddy emailed me a question that i thought i could answer quickly. he wanted to know that if he was in the “zero” percent capital gains tax bracket, did that apply to an unlimited amount of capital gains? sounds like a simple question.

more by ed mendlowitz
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well i looked it up online and then in three one-volume tax guides. only one source had thorough coverage of the issue. i ended up spending an hour on this “simple” question including my emailed response. nothing is simple anymore.

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tax returns nearly match 2024 rates

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data table

refunds still are the only positives.

by beth bellor

tax season grinds on and the number of returns is about the same as last year, according to the internal revenue service.

more: tax pros edge diyers in e-filings | tax refund totals up 7% | tax pros handle 46% of e-filings | tax refund totals up 10% | tax refunds plummet, but no worries | tax refunds up 18% early on | first tax filing reports are in
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

the agency had received 79.6 million individual income tax returns as of march 21 – the latest data available – down 1.1 percent from the same period in 2024. it had processed 78.7 million returns, down 0.7 percent.
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tax pros edge diyers in e-filings

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table of irs filing data

refunds average around 5 percent over last year.

by beth bellor

can you say paperless? only 2.7 percent of individual income tax returns come into the internal revenue service by paper anymore, and only 3 percent of refund recipients request paper checks.

more: tax refund totals up 7% | tax pros handle 46% of e-filings | tax refund totals up 10% | tax refunds plummet, but no worries | tax refunds up 18% early on | first tax filing reports are in
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.     

 

the agency received 70.4 million individual income tax returns as of march 14 – the latest data available – down 1.7 percent from the same period in 2024. it processed 69.6 million returns, down 1.4 percent.
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two types of tax review and how to use them

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woman reading document at desk

let color-coded tick marks be your friends.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

one of your roles as ceo is reviewer. there are two types of review: primary and secondary.

more by frank stitely
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depending on the size of your firm, you may only have primary reviews. if your firm consists of you and a preparer, you won’t have a second level of review. i don’t consider the self-review as a review step. i consider it part of preparation.
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tax refund totals up 7%

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data table

individual amounts are up 5 percent.

by beth bellor

winter is fading away but busy season remains with us.

more: tax pros handle 46% of e-filings | tax refund totals up 10% | tax refunds plummet, but no worries | tax refunds up 18% early on | first tax filing reports are in
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

as of march 7, the latest data available, the internal revenue service had received 61.4 million individual income tax returns, down 2.1 percent from the same period one year ago. it had processed 60.8 million returns, down 1.8 percent.
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make tax workflow work for you

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smiling woman wearing glasses, looking at computer screen

tell quickly when a delay is the client’s fault. plus: 12-step tax return and 8-step writeup workflows.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

let’s play buzzword bingo. i’ll go first: workflow.

workflow is the cpa firm buzzword of the decade. every vendor leech trying to suck the life out of your bank account drops this term, and in so doing, workflow now means everything and nothing at all. marketers have so devalued the term that we shouldn’t be surprised that no one has an effective workflow, because no one knows what it is. let’s flush the confusion.

more by frank stitely
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

workflow is not scanning and import software. workflow is not workpaper binder software. workflow is not a portal or tax return preparation software. workflow is not project management software, much as it pains me to so state. these are no more workflow than a hammer is real estate development. they are tools to accomplish workflow.
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gaps galore at the irs

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stressed businessman, heads on hands

some of the fixes are simple.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

the word “gap” occurs 28 times in the national taxpayers advocate’s 2024 annual report to congress. the report highlights a wide and crippling assortment of gaps in america’s favorite tax agency.

  • a tax gap
  • a salary gap

more: is voluntary disclosure of tax noncompliance working? | irs needs to work better with its workers | why itin applications get delayed | the ouches of the tax ‘practitioner’ scam | could the irs do better with the phones? | irs sluggish on identity theft | tax preparers share advice for your clients | check these 41 items on business tax returns | irs must speed up tax return processing | first tax filing reports are in | cut down your tax work in progress | more than 1 million erc claims still not processed
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

  • a tax pro oversight gap
  • a hiring data gap

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