Practice Management

Sometime in the 1990s, a group of marketing types must have gotten together to come up with the next big trend for businesses to use.

After years of being halted by accountants with their arms outstretched and hands spread wide (Stop!) when I approached them about their marketing plans, I finally realized what makes them so unwilling to market themselves: They are uncomfortable.

TOP 100 MERGER

In a profession where the traditional definition of quantum change means wearing a striped shirt instead of a solid oxford, CPA and business advisory firm Sikich has, in just over a decade, established a progressive roadmap for multidisciplinary practices.

IRS PRIVATE LETTER RULINGS SHOULD GO OUT FASTER

It’s been five years since Connie Mack, as chair of President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, said that it would “take a fresh look at the existing Tax Code and will formulate options for making the tax system simple, fair and productive.

Vice President Joe Biden indicated that the White House could be ready to make a deal with Republicans on expanding the level of income that would qualify for the Bush tax cuts extension.

Tax forms and other government documents will now be subject to a kind of literacy test, under a new government law that so far has not attracted a whole lot of attention.

Lambda Legal has published a short guide aimed at tax professionals and California’s registered domestic partners explaining the consequences of a significant shift in federal tax policy as they file their tax returns for 2010.

While we await the lame duck Congress to find out if and how much our taxes will rise next year, it might be well to remember that government — and the programs it loves to fund — will only keep growing until it runs out of funding. Hardly any government will willingly reduce programs, cut funding, or otherwise act within reasonable limits.