Ask CPA Trendlines
Now, with smarter search, deeper analysis, more detailed responses (v.2.7).
Today's Features
Listen, Download, Stream, Subscribe Anywhere
Click here to load your Apple podcast app
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
Art Werner: Just Don’t Call it a Trump Account | Quick Tax Tip
Trump accounts can be “one of the best” long-term planning options, despite their name, says Werner.
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today
Trump accounts are “one of the best provisions that we have seen,” tax expert Art Werner says in this Quick Tax Tip.
Acknowledging that the name itself may create resistance among some taxpayers, he says that for people who are not fond of President Trump, “when they hear the name Trump account, it turns them off.” But if they dismiss the account because of its name, he adds, “they are walking away from a tremendous opportunity.”
MORE Art Werner | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
Werner explains that funds in a Trump Account are effectively locked away until the child reaches age 18. Once the beneficiary reaches adulthood, the money can be used for specific purposes that he describes as major life milestones, including higher education, purchasing a first home, starting a business, and ultimately retirement planning.
CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business
A Tale of Two Theses: Two of the world’s biggest investors place opposing bets.
KKR takes Crowe. Baker Tilly lands Anchin. Smith+Howard flips. Cherry Baekert ropes Calvetti Ferguson.
By CPA Trendlines Research
KKR, the global investment firm synonymous with “leveraged buyout,” is taking a majority stake in Crowe, 12th on the top 100 lists, for $2.5 billion to $3 billion, including $1 billion in debt.
MORE Private Equity and Institutional Capital | MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 13 Firms Rolled Up in May. 92 So Far this Year | All 466 Deals for the Last 10 Years | Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems | CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform | Ready the Stack Play: Tech Arbitrage Under Private Equity | Staying Independent: Why Your Best Clients Hope You Turn Down Private Equity |PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | How PE Drives Billing Rates Higher | How Private Equity Created $200 Billion in New Riches for CPAs |
Meanwhile, the Tampa-based platform Crete Professionals Alliance is renaming itself Current and confirming that backer Thrive Holdings is earmarking up to $1 billion to roll up dozens of small and midsize local firms.
Each set of investors is deploying $1 billion or more, but with very different theses. The fact that the market is supporting both suggests the market hasn’t decided which is the better strategy.
READ MORE →
Influence: Winning Others Over
A five-step process.
By Matt Rampe
Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu writes in his book, “The Art of War,” “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
Many accounting partners go to “war” (aka strategic planning) and then seek to win by having their opinions prevail. If the partners are well aligned, that can work. However, often partners are not yet aligned on key issues. That is where the subtle art and science of influence can be used to create victory.
MORE by Matt Rampe
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
What Is Influence?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, influence is the capacity to affect the character, development or behavior of someone or something. In a CPA firm context, influence is the method by which you seek to understand and then persuade your peers into alignment around key issues.
READ MORE →
Five Alternatives to Time for Your New Metrics
Measure your progress and success, just not by the hour.
By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA
It may sound ridiculous, but the only people who are married to timesheets are professional services firms staffed by people who spend their professional lifetimes building their knowledge. Every other company in the world has figured out how to sell and price products or services without relying on timesheets.
MORE by Jody Padar
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Why do professional services firms believe you should sell knowledge in increments of time? Ron Baker, an accounting visionary and author of “Firm of the Future,” once asked, “When you’re a knowledge worker, should you be selling your time?” I don’t think so.
Four Reasons That Managers Struggle with Relationships
The seven levels of communication management we engage in.
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
Ultimately, when we have to interact with clients, subordinates, superiors or peers, the questions are always the same: Who do I need to deliver this information to and what approach would they respond most favorably to?
MORE by Martin Bissett
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
In arriving at “Communication” we come to the most intangible of all the components to obtain a “passport to partnership.”
READ MORE →