Tax practice

CPAs know it is imperative to refer clients to third party consultants for various issues that require deep specialization in an area of tax. In many ways, these specialty tax firms act as an extension of your team and require coordination to deliver results that often have a material impact on a tax return.

House Republicans say they’re determined to simplify the U.S. tax code. A long-awaited provision in the massive tax bill they unveiled Thursday, a special rate for “pass-through” businesses, could do exactly the opposite.

A few months ago I suggested that becoming an expert generalist as a niche was a possible career track for someone in a larger firm. I received a lot of feedback that caused me to rethink the column, and I have.

The first of two articles on the draft tax forms and instructions for the 2017 tax year released by the IRS.

Many accountants have just completed their “second” tax season finalizing the extended returns, and life must go on.

The Internal Revenue Service is offering tax relief to victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, along with victims of the other recent monster storms, Harvey and Irma.

Liberty Tax said Wednesday its board terminated founder John Hewitt as the tax preparation chain’s CEO on Tuesday.

Happy Tax has acquired Opportunity Tax and Insurance, a franchise network of eight storefront tax preparation and insurance sales offices in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and announced a partnership Monday with Santa Barbara Tax Products Group, a subsidiary of Green Dot, to provide refund advances and refund transfers.

Hilderbrand & Clark, a CPA firm based in San Ramon, Calif., disclosed it detected unauthorized access to its computer systems from abroad while filing tax returns.

Accountants may be extremely comfortable offering expertise on tax-related savings or advice on expense and cash management, but they may be less accustomed to steering clients to take specific steps to grow revenue.

An NAEA survey reveals the most common reasons taxpayers receive CP2000 notices.

I do not believe the problem is how to manage the millennials; rather it is the myopic firm managers who need better management techniques.

Almost every job has a value to the client. Try to uncover this and price the job, considering that value.

A federal district court has ruled in favor of tax preparers who filed a class-action lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over its right to charge fees for Preparer Tax Identification Numbers, and the IRS may need to refund hundreds of millions of dollars in fees collected each year.

The Tax Office of Tomorrow

Clients are focused on sales, delivering products and services, and growth, but many of them don’t understand how to consistently stay profitable. That’s where their accountant comes in.

I write a lot about a lot of things. On technical topics I never get negative feedback—unless I wrote something wrong, which fortunately has been very rare, and then it is a gentle nudge that perhaps I overlooked or misread something.

With April 18 in the past, tax practices should start assessing their performance.

Uber and Amazon may be the models for the tax preparation process of the future, according to Keith Alessi, the former Jackson Hewitt chairman and CEO who recently joined the board of upstart tax prep franchiser Happy Tax.

Many firms fire staff after tax season. The reason being that they feel they needed to get through tax season and those who are not good are let go as soon as practical. I did it differently.