IMGCAP(1)]This is my 100th Art of Accounting column and I cannot believe it. When I started I was hoping I would be able to write 25 or 30 such articles. I have now reached 100 and still have plenty more to go.
To show appreciation and offer thanks to my readers, I am repeating an offer I made in my March 2, 2015 column and will help anyone responding get published or become admitted to Tax Court.
Last time I helped a few people get published. One of them ended up with a monthly column in his local weekly newspaper, and his article covers a third of the first page of the second section.
Here are some opportunities that I would like to assist you with, but if you have your own ideas, reach out to me and I’ll try to help you with that too. Here are my suggestions:
• Write an article. To start, all you need to do is pick three topics you feel you can write about, pick a publication with readers the articles would appeal to, contact me, and I’ll help you get started and published.
• Present a speech. Same process—pick three topics and an intended audience, and contact me.
• Post a blog. Pick a topic you are expert in or feel strongly about, target a blog site where it can be posted, and write it. Contact me and I could help you choose your topic and your site, and even the writing style if you want. FYI, my first experience with blogging was when I helped a high school son of a colleague write a blog on investing. He chose a complicated topic I did not know much about, but he completed it and posted it. It was like magic to me. One day we were going over the final edits and the next day it was “live.” Today, he is a college graduate, working for an investment manager and doing quite well. My first blogs were posted on the New Jersey CPA Society blog site. Their PR person, Don Meyer, walked me through everything I had to do. I posted a bunch of articles there until I started my own blog at
• Get a blog started. Here you need to have experience writing and have a portfolio of published articles, or an outsized ego with strong opinions about topics in which people would be interested. Contact me to get started. A hint on how to do it is to watch the movie Julie and Julia.
• Social media involvement. Determine your goal in doing this. This includes using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which I am on along with many other social networks. Get signed up on a couple of them, and contact me to see how you can benefit from this. If you want me to help you get set up, let me know.
• Firm publicity. Write three sample press releases of about 300 words each about your firm and what you do, and contact me. There are some services where you can upload them that will distribute them at nominal fees. There is also an easy way to get them published in your local newspapers. Contact me and I’ll fill you in.
• Publish a book. Buy a book from www.2020groupusa.com. For $500 you can have a print-on-demand book to distribute. They have two different books. For ways to use them, contact me.
• Tax Court admission. This is a great credential that will open opportunities to service clients better in tax controversies. Go to
There are others, but these are some easy pickings. I will gladly help you. For each item you want assistance in, do what I said and send me an email about what you want and include your telephone number. My email address is
Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, is partner at WithumSmith+Brown, PC, CPAs. He is on the Accounting Today Top 100 Influential People List. He is the author of 24 books, including “How to Review Tax Returns,” co-written with Andrew D. Mendlowitz, published by
