Busy season is all about taxes, but according to a survey underway by CPA Trendlines, the Ohio Society of CPAs and consultant Michael Ramos, practitioners are by no means putting taxes away for the year.
Apparently, it’s the constant evolution of tax laws and loopholes that keeps tax prep professionals busy all year. Diane Merk, at one of Clark Schaefer Hackett’s offices in Ohio and Kentucky, says, “I only do tax work and structure my CPE to that area,” and she adds that this year she’ll be needing to focus on “Ohio’s potential new changes in the taxable of pass-through entities.”
When your biggest competitors aren’t always CPA firms, you need to re-define who you are.
Jim Cunningham, chief executive officer of Warren Averett CPAs
By CPA Trendlines Staff
Success for accounting firms may depend on their recruitment of non-CPAs to handle some specialized business advisory services, according to Jim Cunningham, chief executive officer of Warren Averett CPAs and Advisors, the nation’s 27th largest accounting firm.
“We should want our clients to truly value us, which means choosing us for discretionary services as things arise, rather than just turning to us for something that needs to get done,” says Cunningham.
With only four companies already controlling 90 percent of the professional tax preparation software market, the competition is intense. To be sure, some 9 in 10 accountants can be counted on to renew year after year, giving vendors barely single-digit year-over-year percentage increases in organic revenue growth.
But with the advent of the cloud, evolving client needs, workflow innovations, and an uncertain outlook for a major tax code overhaul, this year could present a singular set of choices for tax professionals – and fresh opportunities for vendors.
Four companies dominate the CPA tax software market:
Thomson, with UltraTax and GoSystem;
CCH, with ProSystem, Axcess Tax, and ATX;
Intuit, with Lacerte, ProSeries and TurboTax; and
Drake
In the rest of this report, based on a survey by the AICPA of its members, we provide additional detail on:
Another reason global capital is finding a haven in U.S. assets.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The U.S. is the envy of the world in the low tax rate applied to real estate transactions, according to a new study by UHY, the global network of accounting firms.
“The United States has one of the lowest tax rates in our study,” says Dennis Petri of UHY Advisors. “The low level of tax enables homeowners to move more freely from city to city and now, the U.S. is seen as having enviable labor market mobility.”
The study shows taxes on “prime” real estate transfers average 0.6 percent in the U.S., or $6,000, far lower than the global average of 3.3 percent ($33,038) for properties worth $1 million, according to the study.
This year’s tax business is done; mostly, anyway. Now it’s time to buckle down and do what CPAs – and only CPAs – are built for: Accounting, financial reporting, compliance, auditing, attestations, and, of course, the host of consulting services that range from business valuation to internal controls.
Preliminary results from a survey being conducted by CPA Trendlines in conjunction with the Ohio Society of CPAs and consultant Michael Ramos show that about 42 percent of accountants are making accounting and financial reporting a top priority, second only to taxes, and almost twice the rate for two dozen other pursuits.
Julie Lepper at Lepper & Company LLC, which works with a lot of agricultural professionals in greater Pinckney, Mich., says upcoming efforts will be in accounting, reporting, practice management, internal control, and tax matters. “These are areas of particular interest to the direction of our firm,” Lepper says. “We want more monthly accounting clients, so we want to take classes related to that area that might give us some tricks and updates. We are also want to help clients with process and internal controls.” READ MORE →
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