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The National Society of Accountants Has a Bone to Pick with the AICPA

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

A couple weeks back the AICPA gave its members the go-ahead to Crtl+C, Crtl+V its letter to the IRS about how certain parts of the proposed tax preparer regulations were a load of crap.

We just assumed that everyone in the accounting biz was on the same page here but boy we’re we wrong. The National Society of Accountants sent this letter to Treasury honcho Geithner stating that they don’t want any tax preparers exempted from obtaining a PTIN (among other complaints):

NSA Letter Regarding CPA Firm Exemption


What’s especially interesting is that the AICPA is not named in this letter once, however they are named specifically in the NSA’s press release:

Now, at the 11th hour, just before the registration process is scheduled to begin, some – including the American Institute of CPAs – are demanding that staff members of ‘CPA firms’ be exempted from the registration requirements. This flies in the face of why this registration program was set up. The point of the new regulations is to ensure that all tax preparers are accountable for their work in preparing returns, and that should include anyone who paid to prepare all or substantially all of a return, no matter where they may work.

The basic tenet here is that big firms will get away with letting the underlings preparing the returns not be held accountable for their (apparently) shoddy work. The NSA’s position is that if every single legit tax professional is registered then they can track down the shitty ones and the IRS can act accordingly. The NSA claims that the “loophole” proposed by the AICPA will let these amateurs skate the testing and registration requirements and thus won’t be serving taxpayers one iota.

On the one hand you might have been totally against the tax preparer regulations from the start but now that they’re unavoidable, the AICPA’s request for exemptions in some cases may burn the unlucky bunch that wouldn’t get to enjoy waiver.

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Five Things That Make Busy Season Suck

Here it is the second week of February and we’re concerned that many of you are working too hard. We’re guessing that many of you are already having nightmares about your senior/manager/partner putting condiments all over your work and then eating them while you watch in horror.

However your busy season is going, we here at GC decided to put our heads together to give you a list of some of the things about busy season that make it such a bitch; not to remind you of them but to let you know that we feel your pain. These appear in no particular order and were created by our own sick minds so if anything is missing you’ll have to point out the omissions.

• Gaining weight – Unless you’re a die-hard gym rat, your exercise regiment has probably been paired back significantly. Combine that with the all the cheap soda and takeout you’re eating on a nightly basis, that button on your pants is hanging on for dear life.


• Losing sleep – As we mentioned, work dreams seem to be part of many accountant’s busy season routine. Maybe it isn’t dreams for you; maybe you just wake up at 3 am thinking about the meeting you have coming up that day and you can’t get back to sleep so you throw on the business casual uniform and get to the office at 4 am to start your day. OR maybe you’re just working so many hours that the time between your departure and arrival times at work have shortened precipitously.

• Your busy season plan has been completely shot to hell – There’s a some saying about a road, intentions and Hell or something that we can’t remember but it basically means however good your plans were they probably hit a snag somewhere along the way and now you’re scrambling. When we asked our Tweeps about their busy seasons we got one response “it’s all about planning and execution.” Right. That execution is the tricky part.

• You’ve somehow ended up in an unexpected relationship – The busy season bitch if you will. Let’s not pretend it’s not happening people. One of you made an awkward advance and now you’ve got a situation on your hands. Whether it’s someone on your team or a client contact, more often than not, this ends badly. A band aid breakup is needed.

• Hours – Face it; this is the cause of all your pain. Regardless of what your teams do to make things bearable, the hours are just a bitch. Sitting on your ass, in front of that computer, listening to the person next to attempting to burp quietly while sucking down five sodas a day is about to drive you postal. Of course there are the sickos out there that somehow gear up every day to put in another 14 hours but those demented bastards plug in when they go home.

CPA Suing Craigslist Vindicated by New Reviews

In Tuesday’s QOTD someone did not have kind words for Leo Kehoe, a Queens CPA. Specifically, “Watch out for this fraudulent scumbag! … He will botch up your tax returns and forget to submit them.” Scumbag? Fine. “Botch up” and “forget to submit” are also tolerable. Stuff like that happens (right?). What no CPA needs or wants, is their name associated with “fraudulent.”

Anyway, someone had a bad enough encounter with Kehoe that it demanded these words for anyone searching out both a CPA and perhaps some NSA coitus.


Mr Kehoe should be able to rest a little easier now as the Gothamist reported yesterday that a certain someone or someones has a completely different opinion on his services, “Leo Kehoe is a great CPA. He charged me a lower fee than what I had payed with someone else and he did a much better job,” and this one from yesterday, “Leo Kehoe: Much better than Cats. I’m going to see him again and again!”

Depending on your point of view, the “Cats” compliment may be worth far more than the $4 million that Kehoe isn’t likely to get but since accountants seem to be hung up on money far more than cultural comparisons, we expect him to continue moving forward with the lawsuit.

Accountant Sues Craigslist Over Negative Rant [Gothamist]