Category: Accounting
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How the decline in civility affects small business advice
I read much about how an overall decline in civility is evident in many parts of our modern life. I commented on this theme in my earlier blog post reviewing the 2005 book “Collapse” by professor Jared Diamond. Increasing tension between government and its citizens has always been an observed corollary of a declining society.…
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Cleaning up my old blog posts
I just finished manually de-duplicating my personal web page blog posts and found 267 duplicates of the 1200+ gross count. A few were reproduced up to five times. I do not know how that happened. It is possible that they were imported from different publishing sources years ago. There seems to be some harmful impact…
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Revisiting CRM for sole practitioner
It is time for me to revisit the topic of Client Relationship Management systems. I put together notes here in 2014 and in 2012 for the NJCPA. I am looking for a CRM that is well-suited for a sole practitioner CPA practice. I’ve been using Pipedrive and there are many things I like about it. Price…
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The Accountant’s ‘Come to Jesus Moment’
“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are” – a Talmudic saying attributed to Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani who lived 1600 years ago. I read an online discussion thread last night among accountants describing a series of talks they are having this week with some of their small business clients. Some…
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The IRS requirement for personal auto mileage records
You drove your car on business trips. You made a report of how many miles you drove for business, the dates, the specific destination and the purpose of the trips. You have all the expense receipts for gas and other out-of-pocket expenses. You submitted the expense documentation to your employer who reimbursed you. This is a…
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The myth of the ‘correct’ tax return
I occasionally have a conversation with a client, a potential client or another accountant on the topic of the accuracy of a tax return and IRS action. The comments might sound something like one of these: “The last two accountants messed this up and it needs to be made right.” “I am very particular about my…
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IRS catches nonprofit accounting cover-up
This week the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump was fined $2,500 by the IRS for filing a false report to the IRS about the activities of his nonprofit foundation. Nonprofit organizations are not supposed to give money to political campaigns. He did, and then covered up the political donation by reporting it to the…
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Higher state taxes for 225,000 in our region
One hundred thousand South Jersey residents working in Philadelphia and 125,000 Pennsylvania residents working in New Jersey will pay higher state wage taxes in 2017. The tax hike is a result of Governor Christie’s election to cancel the PA/NJ state tax reciprocity arrangement. The change was announced yesterday. The cost to the average South Jersey resident taxpayer…