Art of Accounting: Some relaxation during tax season

Today, I am taking a digression from practice management or tax season topics to write about my nonbusiness blogs. These are something I hope you’ll take a short break to read for a little relaxation.

Besides this weekly column that I have been writing for over seven years, I post a twice a week blog that addresses issues and concerns clients have. To date I’ve posted 940 such blogs. Most deal with investing, management and leadership, running a successful business, estate and succession planning, business valuations, forensic investigations, business controls, tax issues and managing a not-for-profit. However, nine years is a long period and a lot happens. Sometimes I need a break in the routine and I write about some nonbusiness-related topics.

Recently it dawned on me that I had many more nonbusiness blogs than I thought, and they covered a wide variety of subjects. I put together 168 blogs in a single file that fills 200 pages. You can have it for free by emailing me at GoodiesFromEd@withum.com and just put Blog reprints as the subject. No messages necessary.

Each blog is short, and you can read as much or as little as you want at any one time. Some of the blogs are about the two presidents that were each inaugurated four times, the most unpopular president (who is rated as one of the top two today), how the entrepreneur George Washington created the presidency, what you could learn from JFK’s acceptance speech, how Benjamin Franklin supported himself in the 42 years after he retired when he was age 42 and also his fake news, and a conversation that might have occurred between Luca Pacioli, the father of accounting, and Leonardo DaVinci that led to theLast Supperbeing created. You can hear about a real nutty reading project of mine, details of The Goal in graphic format that you should pass on to every manufacturing client you have, the succession planning lesson from Pearl Buck’s 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Good Earth, and a map showing California as an island.

I guarantee you will find something of interest in here. And if you do not like anything, you can easily delete the file. Treat yourself to a short relaxation break.

I hope you are having a good tax season.

Do not hesitate to contact me at emendlowitz@withum.com with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.

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, and “Managing Your Tax Season, Third Edition.” He also writes a twice-a-week blog addressing issues that clients have at www.partners-network.com along with the Pay-Less-Tax Man blog for Bottom Line. He is an adjunct professor in the MBA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University teaching end user applications of financial statements. Art of Accounting is a continuing series where he shares autobiographical experiences with tips that he hopes can be adopted by his colleagues. He welcomes practice management questions and can be reached at (732) 743-4582 or emendlowitz@withum.com.