tax season

reader sound-off: mandatory saturdays stir controversy

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commenting on “mandatory saturdays,” clockwise from top left: stitely, boress, michel, evarts

is it work-life balance, or firm-employee balance?

sound-off: does your firm mandate saturdays?
join the conversation here.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

tax season has yet to start and already tempers are flaring in the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 comments section as practitioners debate requiring staffers to work on saturdays during busy season.

more on staffing: making flex time work in the real world | guidelines for flexible work policies | do flexible hours help or hurt us? | survey: 97% of leading firms now offer flexible work arrangements | the 12 reasons your staff hates your firm | staffing: what cpa firms are learning the hard way

goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

in “how to make mandatory saturdays a thing of the past,” 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 contributor jennifer wilson says the “cool firms” are eliminating the age-old practice nd replacing it with flex-time, work-at-home, and results-oriented strategies. still, she says, “i literally hear a gasp of surprise because it challenges one of the most fundamental elements of public accounting – tracking, measuring and valuing time.”

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10 quick and easy tips for a better busy season

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man working on a caryou may want to keep some of these going year round.
another busy season is upon us. are you feeling excited, anxious or dread?

goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

it’s probably a mix, but hopefully there’s more excitement than any other emotion since you will be helping so many more people during busy season than any other time of the year. here are 10 easy-to-implement ideas to help your busy time go smoother than ever.

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busy season 2016: why some have it worse

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picture1the factors that undermine an otherwise better busy season.

how was your busy season?
join the survey; get the benchmarks

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

according to the final results of the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 2016 busy season survey, this has been a relatively good year…better than last year, anyway. a good 60 percent of respondents said 2016 was much better or somewhat better than 2015.

more busy season management:  better gets better. and worse gets worser | busy season 2016: topline survey results | accountants see economy improving… but mainly for themselves | tax season 2016: turning id theft from a problem into an opportunity  | lessons learned from a bad busy season | busy season 2016: more clients, fewer problems | busy season 2016: problem clients are causing big trouble | 12 ways to stress less this tax season | the dreaded ‘quick question’ | 40 other services your tax clients should know about | where workflow management runs off the rails | ready for tax season? not so fast | 8 ways to delight tax season clients | tax season management: multi-tasking is a myth | digital workflow systems make tax season easier | tax professionals find it increasingly difficult to keep up with late-changing tax regs | the new normal: a busy season that never ends | pro member exclusives: sign in or 2022世界杯足球排名 here

which, admittedly, isn’t saying much. last year was a bad year, a perfect storm of problems. it left 19 percent grousing about a “somewhat worse” busy season, another 3 percent saying it was “much worse.”

could 2016 really be worse than 2015, especially given that it was so much better for so many tax preparers? yep.

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busy season 2016: better gets better. and worse gets worser.

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z_ busy season before during after much betterwith apologies to lewis carroll, 2016 wonderland compared to 2015.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

when 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 sent out its 2016 busy season questionnaire, the early results looked good. comparing the early stages of 2016 against the same period in 2015, 18 percent told us their year was looking much better. another 32 percent somewhat optimistically told us of a “somewhat better” year. that added up rather neatly to half, which was better than in 2015, when only 44 percent said their year was better than the year before.

more busy season management: busy season 2016 topline survey results  |   accountants see economy improving… but mainly for themselves  |  turning id theft from a problem into an opportunity  |  lessons learned from a bad busy season  |  more clients, fewer problems  |  problem clients are causing big trouble  |  12 ways to stress less this tax season  |  the dreaded ‘quick question’  |  40 other services your tax clients should know about  |  where workflow management runs off the rails  |  ready for tax season? not so fast  |  8 ways to delight tax season clients  |  tax season management: multi-tasking is a myth  |  digital workflow systems make tax season easier  |  tax professionals find it increasingly difficult to keep up with late-changing tax regs  |  the new normal: a busy season that never ends  |  pro member exclusives: sign in or 2022世界杯足球排名 here

and then, as the season closed on april 18, something beautiful happened. this year turns out to be even better than expected. almost a quarter—23.6 percent—report a much better year, and more than a third—36.5 percent—report a somewhat better year.

all in all, 2016 exceeded expectations. in both directions.

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tax filing season 2016 ends on positive notes

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chart of irs statistics for week ending april 22, 2016.
[click for larger image]

pros handled 58 percent of e-filings.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

after weeks of falling statistics, the 2016 filing season closed on positives in every category but one – the profession’s market share slipped another percentage point this year.

more on tax season: most tax season filing stats down | tax pros preparing 58 percent of e-filings | tax filing trends remain steady | refunds top $200 billion mark | tax filings, processing remain slower | pros lose ground in e-filing | tax questions up, filings down

there were 136.53 million individual income tax returns filed by april 22, with the april 18 deadline falling within that week. the total returns received were up 1.7 percent from 2015. total returns processed numbered 129.46 million, up 0.9 percent. that puts the processing rate to date at 94.8 percent.

e-filing receipts totaled 122.55 million, up 2.6 percent. tax professionals prepared 70.86 million, up 0.5 percent, and 51.68 million were self-prepared, up 5.7 percent.

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tax filing trends remain steady

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chart of irs filing statistics through april 1, 2016
[click for larger image]

pros handling about 57 percent of filings.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

same song, yet another verse in individual tax filings.

related: refunds top $200 billion mark | tax filings, processing remain slower | pros lose ground in e-filing | tax questions up, filings down

refunds are up a hair, self-preparers rise while tax pros lose ground, and people still like visiting the irs website better than ever.
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refunds top $200 billion mark

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chart of irs data for week ending march 25
[click for larger image]

tax pros hold edge while direct deposit rules.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

refunds to individual income tax filers topped the $200 billion mark as the 2016 filing season entered its final month.

the internal revenue service had received 89.41 million individual returns by march 25, down 0.9 percent from the same time in 2015. it had processed 86.91 million of those returns, down 1.6 percent. while slowing, that’s still a 97.2 percent processing rate.
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pros lose ground in e-filing

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businessman holding a printed red "down" arrowrefunds are up a smidgen, while website visits soar.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

are more e-filers switching to self-preparation, and if so, why?

the “why” unfortunately isn’t told in the data, but the most recent tax filing statistics available show that e-filings by professionals are down 3.6 percent from the same week in 2015, while self-preparation is up 3.8 percent.

related: tax questions up, filings down

e-filing receipts as a whole were flat at 55 million, with 27.7 million coming from tax professionals and 27.37 self-prepared. sure the pros’ number is larger, but we like to look at trends here, and this one causes concern. not to mention that larger number is by a hair’s width of a margin, as pros are handling 50.3 percent of e-filings.
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tax questions up, filings down

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chart of irs filing season statistics for week ending feb. 19, 2016

tax pros doing less than half of e-filings.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

visits to the irs website are up 13 percent, but three weeks into the tax season, almost everything else was down.

irs.gov saw 20 million more visitors than last year at this time, 175,958,748 as of feb. 19, compared to 155,780,478 the same week in 2015.

also up this year are e-filing receipts from self-preparers, with nearly 24.2 million received, up 3.1 percent from last year’s 23.4 million.
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19 ways to stop wasting reviewer time

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bonus: they improve the firm for everyone else, too.

by ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: how much time should a reviewer spend on a return in relation to the preparer time? our reviewers spend .75 hour for each hour of preparer time.

more practice doctor q&a for pro members: how to sell your practice | no go on pro bono | how much overhead is too much? | why adopting new technologies is a must | closed for tax season? looks that way

answer: you are high and most firms i speak with are also high with an average time of about 24 minutes, or .4, hour.
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5 tax season motivation tips

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myriad light bulbshistorical figures had some wisdom that carries forward.

by sandi leyva
the accountant’s accelerator

here are a few of the best lessons i’ve received from the masters.

more on small-firm growth strategies: ready for tax season? not so fast | make your services an investment, not an expense | do you want to do compliance your whole career? | how a spreadsheet can help stop leaks | 5 cool ways to streamline data sharing | 3 tips for following up with prospects | if you don’t develop your business, who will? | 3 ways to test your revenue forecast

although tried and true, their stories and hardships keep me energized, upbeat and thinking bigger. read more →

problem clients are opportunity clients

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overstuffed and overflowing files3 steps to making their lives easier.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

you know who we’re talking about here. they show up in early april with everything you need to prepare their taxes. but it isn’t on a cd. it’s in a soaking-wet shoebox. or they’ve got everything ready on january 2, except it turns out they aren’t sure whether they made their quarterly irs payment last july. or when you ask for their total payroll tax paid, they say, “payroll tax?”

or their numbers just don’t add up. or they desperately need a refund this year, no matter what. or they say they’ll get back to you but don’t. or they keep asking your for legal advice. or they just don’t have time, what with mom and her broken hip, the kid needing to be picked up from ballet class, the dog that needs to go for a walk at 5:30 or else. or they can’t get their capital gains records from their financial advisor…guy named madoff…he just disappeared!

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