I would like to commend Accounting Today for 20 years of excellent coverage of accounting news. You have been thorough, insightful and fair-minded - at least up until you published "Contingent fee limits rile tax groups" (Aug. 7-20, 2006, page 1).
As a writer with over 30 years of experience publishing accounting and business articles in magazines such as Business Week, I was appalled at your omission of the National Society of Accountants in your coverage of this issue.
For over 60 years, the NSA has supported accounting and tax practitioners' interests before the elected officials in their offices and the administrative officials in federal and state regulating agencies. The liaison and cooperation between the NSA and the Internal Revenue Service has been a particularly close association, marked by cooperative efforts that have benefited practitioners and taxpayers.
Many of the members of the NSA serve on IRS advisory committees. Charles Egender, NSA state director for Maryland, and past NSA president Ralph C. McBride serve on the IRS Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee. If the IRS finds the NSA's input useful, you might take a hint and get the NSA's input the next time you cover the reaction of national tax groups to IRS policies.
NSA-affiliated state organizations routinely attend local, regional and state liaison committee meetings, and the information gleaned is collated and summarized for the members through the NSA ASO-IRS Liaison Meeting Report system.
Many times, the NSA has been present while no other stakeholder organization has spent the time or the money to cover the event.
Please take a look at some of the recent testimony on IRS issues from the NSA Web site at www.nsacct.org/irs.asp.
Please check with the NSA the next time you have an article that impacts on the accounting profession and the financial community.
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