Practice Management

The Internal Revenue Service announced the appointment of David R. Williams as director of the agency’s Electronic Tax Administration and Refundable Credits division.

Link2Gov Corp. announced that its Pay1040.com service, now in its fifth year of contracted electronic payment processing for the Internal Revenue Service, is experiencing a 63 percent year-over-year increase in the dollars being processed for federal tax payments.

I was reading an interesting profile this week of Steve Stoute, a respected marketer in the ad world who preaches a message that brands needs to change with the times.Stoute’s agency, Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging, specializes in repositioning brands, and tells its clients that companies need to embrace cultural changes in order to speak with a new generation of clients.

A number of firms, especially the larger regionals, are going corporate. This approach to firm governance is seen as having an overall advantage over the strict partnership model as partners at different stages in their careers and with different specialties and concerns often find it hard to reach consensus or take decisive action quickly.

I seldom veer off the subject of accounting in this space unless circumstances or events encourage me to do otherwise.

The Internal Revenue Service is looking for applicants for its Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, which provides a forum for citizens from each state to make suggestions regarding IRS decisions.

Two Pittsburgh financial advisors have merged their independent accounting, tax and investment advisory practices to form ATI Financial Services.The firm’s initials stand for accounting, taxes and investments, and are meant to reflect the core businesses of the new company, which will also provide comprehensive financial planning, insurance and other financial services.

Marcum & Kliegman LLP has launched a new Women’s Leadership Development Program with neighboring law firm Farrell Fritz PC.The program, which is open to employees of both firms but not open to the public –yet -- was developed to provide a supportive venue for female professionals to explore issues that affect them in the workplace and develop skills to enrich their careers, said Marcum manager of training and development, Nancy Chen.

Leon & Partners LLP announced that it will become part of neighboring Houston firm MiriFox & Rodriguez PC.

It has come to my attention that the advisor-client relationship may be sinking and that you need to do something about it.My friends at SEI, a leading global provider of outsourced asset management, investment processing, and investment operations solutions, has done us all a big favor with its latest survey of some 100 clients of the SEI Advisor Network because it reveals that 28 percent of advisors attribute client relationship failures to a lack of understanding. The result is that advisors need to communicate more clearly to avoid straining or losing clients.