Practice Management

Tax information publisher BNA introduced the BNA Tax and Accounting Center, an online service that unites all of the company’s tax and accounting information in one place.

Software developer Centage introduced a business performance management tool that displays financial and operational key performance indicators on a user’s desktop.

I am increasingly noticing more and more businesses providing unsatisfactory customer service, or, just as irritating, virtually no customer service. Often, at these same businesses, not surprisingly, supervision is also missing. These businesses don’t generate loyal customers, or for that matter many happy, repeat customers. Also, these disgruntled patrons usually don’t provide constructive feedback to the business owner because they are too angry or feel it would be a waste of time. The Ken Blanchard Companies, which helps improve companies’ performance, productivity, and bottom-line results, reports in a survey that customer loyalty ranks as the fourth-most important management challenge to address, and is predicted to be more important by 2010. In the same study, customer relationship skills are cited as the second most important employee development skill, ranking just behind managerial skills.

The Taxpayer Advocacy Panel has issued a report calling on the Internal Revenue Service to improve its services and customer satisfaction as well as reduce the burden on taxpayers.

Congress hopes to partially remedy the tax gap by making tax preparers more responsible for the positions their clients take on returns.Because paid preparers prepare over 62 percent of all individual income tax returns, they are a critical quality control for tax administration by helping to prevent noncompliance, according to an April report released by the Government Accountability Office.

IRS SIMPLIFIES E-SIGNATURESWASHINGTON, D.C. - The Internal Revenue Service said that it plans to simplify the signature process for electronically filed individual tax returns by allowing tax practitioners to avoid the need to send a paper signature document in support of their clients' e-filed returns.

Gina Gwozdz realized just how valuable blogging can be when, as a sole practitioner vying for clients with three other CPA firms in the small town of Bullard, Texas, she started looking to expand her reach beyond writing articles and columns in her local newspaper.Research led her to find a blogging community within the accounting and tax profession, and there she discovered that she could jumpstart her new practice by taking the plunge. She decided to go online and start Gina's Tax Articles at http://glgcpa.blogspot.com.

Like motherhood and apple pie, a pipeline process that helps you organize and realize your opportunities is easy to label "a good thing."But there's a considerable gap between knowing this and making it happen in your own firm. My goal in this article is to help you bridge that gap.

After more than 25 years of consulting with large and small accounting firms, I feel comfortable in sharing with you my observations about great partnerships and how they got that way.Most new firms, and some long-time firms, unfortunately don't give a lot of thought to this question. Their main concern is surviving. But the sooner a firm can start focusing on what makes a great partnership, the better off it will be. Think about this: If you don't address this question, how will you know if you are admitting the right types of partners? What technical and personal skills would you want? What personal values (character) would you look for?

The United States Tax Court has ruled on a case involving a taxpayer, David Billings, who asked to be relieved from liability for the tax owed on money his wife embezzled from his employer without his knowledge, and has decided in his favor.