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POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Who Pays the Auditors?

Doron

How the PCAOB could assure real independence.

By Kayleigh Padar
CPA Trendlines

Is the U.S. ready to move to a third-party payer system for audits?

The author of an article in the influential New York State Society’s CPA Journal magazine says the time has come to bring the discussion into the open.

In the article, Michael Doron, Ph.D, CPA, an associate professor in the department of accounting and information systems at California State University in Northridge, examines relationships between auditors and the public in countries which have more regulation, the results of an experiment with a third-party payer and how the United States government handles similar regulation in other industries.

Although he recognizes changing this process could be seen as “politically radical,” evidence shows it could work. Organizations such as the Public Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) already regulates the American auditing profession. In addition to being seen as radical, he acknowledges the shift would be a “tremendous change.” READ MORE →

PRO Member Exclusive

Hello, IRS? Anybody Home?

Portrait of an angry man yelling on the phoneOne solution is modeled on 311 service.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Here’s the understatement of the day, if not the century, from the Tax Advocacy Service’s Annual Report to Congress 2019:

Taxpayers Often Have Difficulty Locating IRS Personnel Who Can Provide Accurate and Responsive Information Regarding Their Cases

We’d be tempted to say, “Well, duh” if it weren’t such a serious issue.

MORE: Wanna Change The Tax World? | Tax Season 2019 Serves Up a Taste of the Future | The Big Free-File Flop | Survey: Busy Season Goes Sour | Taxpayer Advocate Slams Congress over Funding
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How serious? As the TAS report points out, “Although taxpayers are required by law to pay their duly owed taxes, they are also the agency’s ‘customers.’ The agency’s failure to adequately engage these customers cannot cause taxpayers to take their business elsewhere, but it will jeopardize the voluntary compliance on which the U.S tax system depends.”
READ MORE →

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

How the IRS Hides Its Legal Decisions

IRS chief counsel office charged with intentionally evading its responsibilities to the public

By CPA Trendlines Research

Like the universe itself, the Internal Revenue Code keeps expanding toward infinity. In that its more than 2,600 pages are unclear in spots, there are an additional several thousand pages of rules and regulations. And just to clarify all that, there are tens of thousands of pages of court decisions.

MORE: Tax Season 2019 Serves Up a Taste of the Future  | The Biggest Reason Fraudsters Run Rings around the IRS  | The Big Free-File Flop | The Demise of Schedule A? | Refunds Still Up, but Only by 0.7% | Survey: Busy Season Goes Sour | Tax Refunds Up 1.7% | Lessons Learned: How the Federal Shutdown Hit Busy Season 2019 | Tax Refund Fury Roils Busy Season | Taxpayer Advocate Slams Congress over Funding

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How many pages in all? No one knows. Knowing, in fact, is impossible because in the time it takes to add them all up, their number increases. That’s why CPA Trendlines believes it’s so critically important to a fair and well-functioning tax system that the IRS Office of Chief Counsel (OCC) be held accountable for disclosing technical advice promptly. Unfortunately, the OCC seems to disagree. READ MORE →

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Tax Season 2019 Serves Up a Taste of the Future

“Thirty percent of tax services will be obsolete in three years.”

Robert Hockensmith talks about Tax Season 2019 on local TV news in Phoenix.

By CPA Trendlines Research

This year’s tax season is giving tax preparers a taste of the future—a future where tax returns are both simpler and more complex.

According to data streaming into the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer survey, tax practitioners are just beginning to get a handle on the radical changes wrought by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—not just the technical changes to the tax code but the resulting changes to the business of tax preparation.

MORE: The Biggest Reason Fraudsters Run Rings around the IRS  | The Big Free-File Flop | The Demise of Schedule A? | Refunds Still Up, but Only by 0.7% | Survey: Busy Season Goes Sour | Tax Refunds Up 1.7% | Lessons Learned: How the Federal Shutdown Hit Busy Season 2019 | Tax Refund Fury Roils Busy Season | Taxpayer Advocate Slams Congress over Funding

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Robert F. Hockensmith, CPA, EA, in Phoenix, Ariz., and a website site notably named AZMoneyGuy.com, offers a variety of tax and non-tax services, sums it up thus: “Thirty percent of tax preparation will be obsolete in three years. Clients will want advice and tax resolution more than preparation for 50 percent of taxpayers. And only 50 percent of all tax returns will be prepared by professional tax preparers.”

READ MORE →

BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

The Biggest Reason Fraudsters Run Rings around the IRS

IRS chases the wrong returns, delaying refunds, wasting resources.

By CPA Trendlines

Let’s have a pity party! You’re invited.

Let’s pity the Internal Revenue Service for having to identify fraudulent tax returns and taxpayer identities.

MORE: The Big Free-File Flop | The Demise of Schedule A? | Refunds Still Up, but Only by 0.7% | Survey: Busy Season Goes Sour | Tax Refunds Up 1.7% | Lessons Learned: How the Federal Shutdown Hit Busy Season 2019 | Tax Refund Fury Roils Busy Season | Taxpayer Advocate Slams Congress over Funding

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Let’s pity the taxpayer whose tax return gets flagged as fraudulent—or her stolen identity that doesn’t.

And let’s pity the tax preparer stuck between the legitimate taxpayer and the fumbling, under-funded, well-intentioned bureaucracy of the IRS. READ MORE →