How Tax Practitioners Became Cybersecurity Risks

Tax professionals are a hacker’s dream.  

By Donny Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
On Cybersecurity for Accountants
Center for Accounting Transformation

In 2015 the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) held its first Security Summit[i]. By creating a public-private partnership via the summit, the IRS is seeking to protect more taxpayers and more tax dollars from tax-related identity theft.

MORE: How Hacker-Proof is Your Firm?Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | AI, OCR, NLP & CPAs: Oh My!   |  Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in Audit | Dustin Wheeler: For Serious CAS Success, Hire Tech Teams | CSR for CPAs: The Missing Ingredient | Donny Shimamoto Explains How ‘Agile’ Applies to CPA FirmsStaff Retention for Remote Workers | Why the Future is in Risk Advisory |  Ready for Non-CPA “CPA” Firms?
GoProCPA.com Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Partners in the summit included the IRS, state tax agencies and the private sector tax industry—for example, financial institutions, cybersecurity practitioners and tax practitioners.

The summit brought together people from the full value chain of tax compliance. Taxpayers submit information to tax practitioners, who prepare the returns and submit them to the tax authorities.

READ MORE →

Yes, AI Writes Better Emails

Email taming and tracking tools with AI-powered writing help are here.

By Beth Ziesenis
App of the Week

Have you ever re-read a sent email and cringed because it came off snippy? Sometimes, we lose perspective when we’re plowing through the day’s inbox.

MORE APPS of the WEEK:  Automate Captions for Videos | Can’t Read it Now? Save it for Later | Don’t Lose Precious Memories: Digitize Old Photos | Track Your Mileage Automatically | Keep Track of Your Subscriptions | Capture Testimonials to Increase Credibility | Find an Extra Set of Hands for Time-Consuming Tasks | Personalize Communication and Set Yourself Apart from Competition | Waiting to Exhale (i.e., Can April 19 Hurry Up?) |
SEE ALL: Apps of the Week here |
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Business etiquette, often labeled a “soft skill,” can be less hard using advances in AI technology.

READ MORE →

Marketing a Fixed Position in a Moving World

Three things to keep in mind.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

There is no great mystique to the marketing concept of positioning. While it’s not as simple as some would make it seem, nor as complex as others would have you believe, it’s still very real.

MORE: Accountants vs. Lawyers: Who Wins the Marketing Battle? | The Risk In Not Understanding Risk | What Your Marketing Program Can and Can’t Do | Nine Reasons That Prospects Say Yes | How Marketing Evolved to 3.0 | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Like so many words used in marketing, positioning has come to be shorthand for some ideas that have come a long way in the pursuit of sound marketing practice. First popularized by Ries and Trout in their 1981 book, “Positioning,” the concept took a basic advertising practice and codified it in a way that made it possible for other marketers to think differently about approaches to the market.
READ MORE →

The Damage That Traditional Fee Methods Do

A road sign depicting falling dollarsThe Rule of Three and cost-plus overlook some key considerations.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

The time has come for the accounting professional to rethink the paradigm on which pricing has been based. Let’s discuss the traditional methods of price setting and how they can have a negative impact on a firm.

MORE: Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development | Ten Keys to Marketing Success
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Somewhere along the line accountants began to believe that an hour of their work had a set value to their clients. As we shall see, this false assumption has led to the current state of affairs and has caused accountants to:
READ MORE →

Why the U.S. Must Act Now to Protect Our Online Privacy

Lawmakers need to step up. Don’t expect Big Tech to help.

By Jonathan Baron

I’m thankful for the European Union. They watch out with much more diligence to protect privacy and do so with an eye to cybersecurity as well. But at least our regulators in the U.S. are fairly good, but slow, followers.

MORE CYBERSECURITY: Top Tax Vendors Caught Red-Handed Selling Private Taxpayer Data | How Hacker-Proof is Your Firm?It Takes a Village to Stop Cybercrime | One-Third of Cyber Attacks Involve Small BusinessesCyber Insurance Costs Rise in Health Care as Attacks SoarThe Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for AccountantsWhen Cyber-Crime Hits Close to HomeCybersecurity for Tax Professionals |

MORE JON BARON: Top Tax Vendors Caught Red-Handed Selling Private Taxpayer DataClient Accounting Services Poised to Surge in Post-Corona WorldTax Pros Retake Market Share from DIYersThree New Technologies that Will Change Everything [VIDEO]Economic Mega-Trends [VIDEO]Today’s Best Opportunities for Accounting Firms [VIDEO]Re-Invest in Your Firm or Get Out? [VIDEO] When Tax Work Dies [VIDEO] The Big Shift and The Shakeout [VIDEO]Why the U.S. Lags the World in Tax Tech [VIDEO]

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

I was reminded of this because the other day, I received my quarterly report from DeleteMe, which I use to periodically clean up my data being bought and sold without my knowledge on the open market. Since our last report, my wife and I have had over 20 new third parties needing cleanup. Unbelievable.

READ MORE →

Want Better Clients? Here’s How

Five ways to find the sweet spot for your target client.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Many accountants serve clients with extremely small businesses that gross six figures a year or even less. These clients are prone to being price-sensitive and often struggle with budgets and cash flow. If you’re serving these clients, you’re definitely meeting an important need in the marketplace, but you may also start to question your own prices, or worse, underprice your services.

MORE: Five Ways to Acquire More Clients | Get Your Name in the News | Five Ideas for More Summer Revenue | Four Ways Small Firms Can Beat Large Ones | Why You Need a Link-In-Bio Tool | Five Emotional Skills for Entrepreneurs | Transform Your Marketing with CRM | Five Kinds of Small Thinking
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The good news is that, on average, the higher revenues a company earns, the more likely they are to be a higher-quality client for you. Owners with larger companies, on average, are less price-sensitive and less emotional about running their businesses. The sweet spot for many small CPA firms and bookkeeping companies is to attract clients from $1 million to $3 million all the way up to about $10 million to $20 million in annual revenues. So how do you get to these higher-quality clients? Here are five ideas:
READ MORE →

Six Systems Used to Determine Partners’ Goodwill Payments

Businesswoman using calculator while reviewing something on laptop screenALSO: 28 main provisions of partner buyout plans.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

This chart shows the different systems that firms across the country are using for partners’ goodwill payments. The data is from a recent edition of The Rosenberg MAP Survey.

MORE: How Partner Buyouts Work | 11 Best Practices for Partner Compensation | Why Buying Into a Firm Is Such a Great Investment | The Business Side of CPA Firms | It Shouldn’t Take So Long to Make Partner | Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Six Systems Used to Determine Partners’ Goodwill Payments

READ MORE →

Top Tax Vendors Caught Red-Handed Selling Private Taxpayer Data

TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct have been passing on sensitive personal and financial data to Meta, Google and other Big Tech companies.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Q: Since when did private tax returns become public information?

A: Since some of the nation’s biggest tax preparers decided to share it.

MORE CYBERSECURITY: Jon Baron: Why the U.S. Must Act Now to Protect Our Online Privacy |Top Tax Vendors Caught Red-Handed Selling Private Taxpayer Data | How Hacker-Proof is Your Firm?It Takes a Village to Stop Cybercrime | One-Third of Cyber Attacks Involve Small BusinessesCyber Insurance Costs Rise in Health Care as Attacks SoarThe Why, What and How of Cybersecurity for AccountantsWhen Cyber-Crime Hits Close to HomeCybersecurity for Tax Professionals |

MORE TAX: IRS Embracing Stakeholders | Coming Soon: New Ways to Pay the IRS | IRS Sets Milestones for Radically New Service | IRS Promises 12 Customer Service Initiatives | Should Tax Preparers Be Certified Competent? | IRS Has Big Plans for Its $80 Billion | Can’t IRS Tax Pro Accounts Do More? | Taxpayer Assistance Centers Need Upgrade
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

For all your concerns about protecting client information, it seems that TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct have been passing on sensitive personal and financial data to Meta, Google and other Big Tech companies.
READ MORE →