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Countdown to the End of Tax Season or Just the End?

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

tax man.jpgFor lots of you tax trolls out there, you might be seriously reconsidering your career choice at this particular moment. Oh sure, there are probably some of you who are so deranged that the excitement you feel at that this time of year is only rivaled by the stretch from mid-February to April 15 but you all need committed.
For the rest of you, the milestone of two weeks until the September 15th deadline is either the light at the end of the tunnel or simply just another day wandering in the darkness since you’ll be crawling across the ultimate finish line on October 15th.
So we’re calling on brave/insane tax soldiers out there to sacrifice a few moments of their chargeable time to let us know how it goes with two weeks to go until 9/15. Hours you’re working, the latest on post-deadline layoff rumors, nightmare clients, whatever moves you.
UPDATE: One source at a Big 4 firm describes it this way:

For me, it has been very reasonable. For others, it is miserable. The unreasonable requests are piling on to a teammate of mine. His senior gives him 40 hours of work and expects him to finish it in one night. They have no clue and shit rolls down hill. It’s amazing how poorly accountants gauge time. Sad.

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The IRS Is Making “Thousands” of Visits to CPAs During Tax Season

Apparently the IRS is not one for timing. Earlier this month the Service announced that if you get paid to crank out 1040s, your life as you know it is more or less over. Well, at least a little more inconvenient. Okay, it’s hella-inconvenient.

Back when the new regulations were announced the Service let it be known that since it can’t get these new regulations implemented for 2010, it was still stepping up its efforts for getting all up in tax preparers’ shit.


The first step being to be to send 10,000 letters to paid preparers nationwide letting them know that they need to be on their A-game. The letters were intended for, “preparers…with large volumes of specific tax returns where the IRS typically sees frequent errors,” and that they should be “vigilant” for errors related to “Schedule C income and expenses, Schedule A deductions, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the First Time Homebuyer Credit.”

Well then. That should cover about EVERY TAX PREPARER IN THE COUNTRY.

Anyway, the IRS is following up the 10,000 “Dear Joe Kristan” letters with phone calls to set up sit-downs with “thousands” of preparers. According to William Stromsem, who wrote a piece over at CPA2Biz, these are “urgent” calls:

In at least one case, the IRS called a practitioner at home and spoke with the spouse by name, asking for a response within three hours and then calling back before that time was up. Another practitioner, who was unable to schedule a meeting during a busy time was threatened with having the refusal passed up the line to a supervisor.

The piece goes to tell us that the visits will be performed in the coming weeks and months and may last up to 3 hours. Does anyone see a problem with this yet?

These chats are designed to be friendly reminders of all the pitfalls out there in tax preparer land; not a compliance visit (but they will remind you of the penalties that can be assessed for any malfeasance). Regardless of the pleasant intentions, the timing has irked CPAs to no end and we can’t say that we blame them. Hope no one is expecting an apology. And one more thing, we’d like to know how the Commish’s CPA feels about this whole thing. Just for fun; he should get a letter.

IRS ‘10,000 Letters’ Program Angers CPAs [CPA2Biz]

IRS Commish Finds the Tax Code Complex, Doesn’t Do His Own Taxes

[caption id="attachment_23858" align="alignright" width="260" caption="Dude. Code is this thick."][/caption]Just because you’re in charge of the IRS doesn’t mean you know anything everything. Doug Shulman was on C-SPAN over the weekend (we’re sure you saw it) and admitted that he uses a tax preparer.

His rationale is, “Look, I’m a busy dude, I don’t have time to do my own taxes. Besides, have you seen the size of the tax code? It’s a flippin’ mind job.”

Or in his own words:

“I’ve used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer,” Shulman said.
Pressed on how he would make the tax code simpler, Shulman responded, “I don’t write the tax laws. Congress writes the tax laws so that’s a whole different discussion.”

Unapologetic as usual, Dougie. We’ll give him credit though – admitting that the tax code that you’re in charge of enforcing is too complex is admirable (although not a news flash).

Plus, he goes so far to say that he’s powerless to do anything about it. Now that’s transparent government!

IRS commissioner doesn’t file his own taxes [The Hill]

More Tax Clients for Ludacris (or His CPA)

As you’re no doubt aware, the IRS has taken exception with the notion that many of our favorite celebrities and athletes can do no wrong. As detestable as this thought might be, Doug Shulman and his merry band of tax collectors are not impressed with these pillars of the community turning a blind eye to their patriotic obligations.


Some of the latest examples of celebrity tax avoidance:

• Corey Feldman – Technically it’s Corey Feldman Inc. that owes the IRS $31k but same diff.

• Faith Evans – Widow of Notorious B.I.G. Grammy winner. Soon-to-be reality TV star. The combination of these things somehow doesn’t allow her to scrape together $360k.

• Mel Blount – Okay, we have to admit that we don’t know who the hell this guy is but the sports historians and the entire city of Pittsburgh are probably familiar. For everyone else – he’s a former Steelers’ cornerback that was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989. He owes taxes for every year from 1994 to 2006 (with the exception of ’07) for grand total of $652k. Seriously, this is f—ing ridiculous. Even Nicolas Cage manages to file a tax return once a decade. There’s not one CPA in all of the ‘Burgh that can help this guy?

As the title indicates, our advice to these people is to get in touch with Luda “I pay more in taxes than most people would ever imagine” cris ASAP. Whether he’s mastered TurboTax or managed to find a solid CPA, it doesn’t matter because, as you might recall, “you will never hear about Ludacris owing the damn IRS no damn money.”

Source: Tax Watchdog