one big accomplishment: by feb. 2, 2023, the irs had cleared the entire carryover inventory of unprocessed individual tax returns received in 2022 – a backlog of 447,000 paper returns and 445,000 amended returns. read more →
1. understand the physical limitations of “willpower.”
according to scientists, our willpower is replenished every morning after a good night’s sleep. it’s strongest in the morning (even if you’re an evening person like me), and it wanes throughout the day. the more stress you’re under, the faster it depletes during the day, and sometimes your willpower runs out before the day does. read more →
in accounting, you know that tax season doesn’t end in april, as it often extends well into october. so, now that another season has come and gone and you’ve endured all the things you swore you’d never do again this year, what will be different in 2024 and beyond?
every year, i speak to tax pros and accountants with tax work at their practice’s core. i listen, i read what they share on social media, and it always seems to be the same. they swear they’ll get rid of clients who regularly extend into october. still, they must hound those to the irs deadline. they rail against the irs and lack of guidance, or the hours spent on the phone trying to get answers or to resolve an issue for their clients. they exclaim, “this is the last year i’m going to…” and yet, little to nothing of significance changes. with more accountants getting increasingly frustrated with their careers and fewer coming into the profession, it is up to you to say what will change.
so, again, i ask you all, what do you need to change to make it more enjoyable, bearable and even productive for yourself?
here are a few suggestions based on my observations. take them for what you will.
concern is starting to be expressed by many cpas as to what their responsibilities are regarding the corporate transparency act. clients, if they haven’t done so already, will be expressing their own concerns and frustrations.
what compliance issues are on our client’s horizon, and where does the cpa fit in regarding the cta? cpas and tax professionals need to know how to advise their clients in this new regulatory era of the cta.
the corporate transparency act mandates that a business entity must disclose who the beneficial owners of the business entity are. corporations, partnerships, professional corporations, and limited liability entities are all subject to the cta. the purpose of the cta legislation is to assist the financial crimes enforcement network in identifying entities that may be involved in money laundering, terrorism, tax evasion, organized crime, and/or other illegal activities.
black ore emerges from stealth with $60 million in funding to launch tax autopilot, an “autonomous” tax prep app for cpas and accounting firms.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research via black ore
black ore.ai, an austin, texas-based ai platform for financial services, bolts out of the gate with $60 million in financing led by a16z and oak hc/ft. the company plans to use the funds to onboard new customers, grow its team and accelerate the development of additional ai products across financial services.
kapovskishinar
black ore was founded by veteran entrepreneurs, ceo eyal shinar and cto pavel kapovski, who have proven track records building and operating global fintech brands with ai and machine learning technologies. shinar previously founded fundbox, a $1 billion fintech unicorn powering payments and lending solutions for smbs. kapovski previously led r&d at cme group and spearheaded the development of machine-learning technology used by globally regulated banks and financial institutions. they are joined by a powerful team from leading companies such as adobe, baker tilly, cisco, ey, google, goldman sachs, grant thornton, nasa, pwc and ramp.
black ore offers an ai and automation platform that accelerates core workflows for financial services businesses and simplifies the experience for their clients. as part of its launch, black ore also announced its flagship product, tax autopilot, which combines its proprietary ai technology with federal and state tax codes and regulations to simplify the tax preparation and review process for cpas and accounting firms. future product offerings will target wealth management, financial advisory and planning, insurance services and more.
ask if an assigned project has been completed and get the, “it’s done, but …” followed by a few reasons why said project is still – let’s be honest – incomplete.
in my last book, i recommended hiring younger staff. in that book, i cautioned that you might have to teach very simple tasks like breathing and using the bathroom to your newbies.
one reader posted that she didn’t believe it was the responsibility of an admin department to teach bathroom use. she was new to this hot new writing technique called sarcasm, but she did a great job making my point that you have to teach your staff a lot of basic things.
one of those teaching tasks is the meaning of “done.”
the serenity prayer states, “grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” keep that in mind for a moment.
when preparing tax returns and financial statement audits, one of the biggest challenges cpa firms face is either late or incomplete client information.
response: this can apply to every research question asked by anyone in the firm. besides tax, it can be for audit, internal controls, succession planning or any other client service area.
when i talk with prospective clients in any medium, i lead with tax planning. i don’t care if i’m meeting them, calling them or emailing them. i lead with tax planning. the number one complaint clients have about cpas and tax preparers is a lack of planning. they get tax returns and nothing else.
the fun part is seeing the reaction when i mention planning. i tell them that they can know the results while there’s still time to change the results. tax season is no longer stressful because they know the answers in advance about refunds and balances due. read more →
question: i bought a tax return practice in december from a person who was charging $180 per hour. my rate is $300 per hour so i did not make money and i would like to know what i could do to raise fees so i don’t continue to lose on it.
answer: after a long discussion, it appears that he bought a good practice with good fees charged for the returns. his problem is that he has no employees and did all the work himself – about 750 tax returns, and was totally overwhelmed with non-stop work. read more →
we all have clients who bring in tax documents in laminated three-ring binders. they smile big toothy grins and tell us how they’re our most organized client. there’s no reason for us to organize the documents, as they’ve already done us this huge favor. of course, there will be no reason for us to remove anything from the binder and everything should be left in the binder just as it is.
we call these people binder boys. they have no clue that organized for them is not organized for tax return preparation. preparing a return from documents in a binder takes twice as long, at least, as preparing returns from a well-organized pdf file.
we also have the people who use five pounds of staples to organize 20 pages. they don’t want any loose documents falling out of the file. read more →
it was good meeting with you last week. ed and i are excited to be working with you and look forward to a long and satisfying professional relationship. read more →
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