Guest Article

Joseph Michael Balint had some really hard luck. He was in prison in Florida from December 17, 2013, through January 6, 2015. Fearful of forfeiting assets, he transferred everything to his wife, Jacqueline, and gave her power of attorney early in his prison term. What he had not planned on was her emptying the retirement accounts and leaving him with the tax tab. His luck turned a bit in Tax Court, as we shall see.

Coming up on the end of the year, year end planning is kind of a ritual for me. I take my first pass in early November and will do it again no later than December. It is pretty boring. I thought it would be worthwhile to do a survey of a variety of year end tips articles. What is going on here is something like Ahab’s hunt for the great white whale. I am looking for something to help out HENRY. HENRY stands for High Earnings Not Rich Yet. I wrote about the quest in 2019. I found nothing much for HENRY then, and this year’s batch of advice articles really does not offer much. The articles do not all say exactly the same thing, but there is a lot of commonality. Due to the sophisticated nature of the readership of TOTTB, I will just allude to the tips, not explain them in detail, because I am going someplace else with this. There is nothing dramatic for HENRY coming from conventional advisers, which accounts for HENRY’s vulnerability to sketchy tax shelters. I will share a bit about what I have seen in that department and reflect a bit.

The federal government is there to reduce taxpayer confusion. That, at least, was one point of the reasoning for the recent IRS decision to again postpone a $600 tax-reporting threshold for people paid via third-party settlement networks. Those who made that amount on the likes of eBay and other online sales sites and who received payment via such platforms as PayPal and Venmo will not have that money reported to the IRS for another year. Does this really let taxpayers off the hook? What strategies should you adapt for when the IRS does mandate this reporting?

I knew little about email marketing when I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2018. I used emails to communicate regularly with team members, vendors, board members, etc. Little did I know that having an email list of prospects and effective campaigns are a way to grow revenues. We are in a time when digital communication, specifically email marketing, has been and continues to be one of the most potent tools for business owners, especially accountants, seeking to enhance client relationships and drive business growth. Many perceive that our accounting industry is traditional; however, we’ve finally included marketing in our world and established new avenues for engagement. Here, I will shed light on the crucial role of email marketing in the accounting sector and provide actionable strategies for effective client communication.

This year is far from over for tax planning – for some moves, you have even longer – but now’s the time to start looking and acting on your tax tactics given your circumstances and the 2023 you’ve had so far. What you do or don’t do now could save or cost you next April.

By now I hope that all tax professionals have heard of the FinCEN requirement for certain entities to report beneficial ownership information starting in 2024. The requirement is causing confusion because tax and accounting professionals feel that this could be an opportunity to either add value to an existing engagement, could be a new revenue stream, or could be a huge potential for liability. What follows is a brief review of the law and the requirements, an analysis of the main issues, and some recommendations for practitioners wondering how to help their clients while limiting their professional liability.

If you read my article Building a Strong Personal Brand as an Accountant: Strategies for Success you’d have learned about how I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2018, knowing absolutely nothing about marketing. I was one of those CFOs who would need to understand why a company has to spend more money on marketing; however, I did understand that having a robust online presence was necessary for a new digital age. Little did I know that marketing is senior to any other activity in a business.

Penalties for procrastination in tax matters can be somewhat harsh. Judge Albert Lauber of the United States Tax Court gave us some lessons on the topic earlier this year. The “strategy” of over withholding so that you can file your return whenever the spirit moves you rather than by the due date has a serious downside. The statute of limitations will not work in your favor, but it will work against you. It is a little like you are playing in a chess tournament and you and your opponent are staring at the board. Your clock is ticking and theirs is not.