It’s the best time to learn the tough lessons to apply next year.
With busy season a frenzy, most professionals keep their heads down and their noses to the grindstone.
But if you’re in management, you can’t afford to waste the once-a-year opportunity to take notes on what’s working, what’s not and what to do about it before the next busy season.
With that in mind, Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP, lists seven tech tends to watch: READ MORE →
Last chance to take care of yourself, your career, your firm — before busy season begins.
Nine rules for tax season success, including: Bartering services for ammo, if necessary.
by Thomas Avery Blair, EA
tomblairea.com
I believe that in order for the registered tax preparer/licensed tax attorney, CPA and Enrolled Agent to remain in business now and in the future, there will have to be a resurgence in the attitudes of conventional and unconventional “personal service” to the individual tax client.
I bear witness to the fact that my own small tax practice now requires that more personal attention be given to the individual client. “One size fits all” simply won’t work. The tax code is growing ever more complex while the public’s education in federal taxation matters is waning.
Here are some examples of what I mean:
1. My clients needed year around access to a notary public… so I became and now remain a commissioned notary public.
2. My clients needed cost-effective access to legal advice, especially over matters of wealth retention… so I fostered a business relationship with an attorney with a desire to have her own practice who had the precise skills my clients asked me to find for them. She gets free office space in my office three days a week by giving my tax clients $50 an hour discounted rates on initial consultations in the “off season.”
They make all the hard work pay off.
by Rick Telberg
Some tax and accounting practitioners are showing how to deal with the same problems as their peers and competitors, and yet rise above them.
The results can be dazzling.
Overall, 45% of accountants say this busy season was better than last year’s, including 12% who said “much better.”
Indeed, for those lucky few, it was better by almost any measure. Among those who reported operations were “much better” this year: READ MORE →
Tax filers who paid an accountant or CPA to prepare their returns register the highest satisfaction with their method of preparation.
Some 75 percent state that they were “very satisfied” in working with the accountant or CPA, according to a new survey.
Despite economic recovery, many firms seem unable to capitalize on new opportunities. Click here to join the Tax Season 2011 survey; get the results.
Tax accountants are finishing the 2011 busy season with stronger results than they expected, but – perhaps surprisingly — not as strong as last year, despite somewhat improved economic conditions.
CPA Trendlines research suggests that many accounting firms may have over-reacted to the 2007 market crash by cutting staff and billing rates, leaving them unprepared to capitalize on the opportunities of the 2011 recovery.
As busy season gets off to slow start. By Rick Telberg With the IRS playing catch-up and a client base still feeling the pressures of the Great Recession, tax practitioners in the latest CPA Trendlines survey are reporting a marked … Continued
Job 1: Managing client expectations. by Rick Telberg Accountants are bracing for delays and confusion caused by late-breaking tax rules and regs, not to mention the complications of a difficult and uncertain economy, when Tax Season 2011 starts with the … Continued