nearly 100 million individual returns have been filed.
with the tax season winding down, the irs had received more than 99 million individual tax returns as of april 3, down 0.8 percent from 2014. more than 97.9 percent of those had been processed – 97 million, down 1.2 percent from last year.
as results pour in from the final days of the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 busy season barometer 2015, it’s clear that practitioners’ experiences range widely, from outright euphoria to bleak despair.
in case you missed it… in this directory, 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 compiles complete coverage of the 2015 busy season. irs seeks more tools to fight refund fraud fy 2016 budget provisions would expand authority for regulation, correctable errors. workflow automation takes root in … continued
a.b. east, at manning elliott in vancouver, bc, canada, for example, took a lesson in smart management. he says he learned “the importance of having the right complement of experienced staff to delegate to so i can reduce my hours and deliver to clients on timely basis.” next year east will continue a very healthy policy: “i have been and will continue to mentor managers, seniors and juniors to advance their expertise on a quicker basis.”
most of the issues practitioners faced this year fit into seven main categories. what’s especially interesting is that the solutions vary from common sense to plain impossibility.
imagine there’s no deductions, it’s easy if you try. no 8965, no1095-a, above us, only sky. imagine all the cpas, living for today…
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
there’s nothing like another tax season to prod accountants into imagining about ways to reform the nation’s tax system. in the this year’s 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 busy season barometer, some cpas have specific suggestions; others are calling on the profession to take a leadership role in the national conversation.
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 is polling the profession with a two-minute survey asking for specific recommendations for changing the code, the regs, the instructions and the forms – whatever it takes to make life easier for cpas and the american taxpayer. (the call was not to reduce or increase taxes, just to simplify them.)
the earliest responses call for a diverse set of approaches: read more →
they don’t call it “busy season” for nothing. it’s a frenetic, hectic, even hellish effort to herd client cats toward an unforgiving deadline.
when we ask 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 members what lessons they’re learning this year and what they plan to do about it next year, we hear a lot about time management. based on the survey, time management issues can be organized into eight main categories:
disorganized offices,
timing,
staffing,
scheduling,
procrastination,
poor planning,
the need for time off and
the desire to retire.
the solutions cpas will be implementing next year range from minor tweaks to complete overhauls, or even surrendering to retirement and calling it victory. read more →
total individual returns received has topped 90 million.
the irs has received nearly 90.3 million individual tax returns as of march 27, down 0.6 percent from 2014. the processing rate remains nearly at pace, with nearly 88.3 million of returns processed – down 0.9 percent from last year but still running more than 97.8 percent complete.
some individuals choosing e-filing but paper return checks.
the irs has received nearly 82.3 million individual tax returns as of march 20, down 0.6 percent from 2014. it has processed more than 80.4 million of them, down 0.9 percent from last year and a rate of over 97.7 percent complete for this year. read more →
the u.s. tax system has become so complex and dysfunctional that even professional tax practitioners are bitterly frustrated and angry – outrage that’s been boiling over in the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 busy season barometer.
this year accountants are talking about staff problems, client problems, overload problems and affordable care act problems. but the anger with new forms and regulations isn’t stopping there.
“all reason has gone out the door,” says a cpa in montrose, colo. “i have been preparing tax returns for over 35 years. there has never been a tax season like this one – and there will never be another one like it.”
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 annual busy season barometer is uncovering some frank and candid talk about clients. yes, we love them. couldn’t live without them. most of the time. but, well, not always.
it’s not that they’re bad people. but let’s face it, they aren’t always sweating tax prep much in advance of april 1, they have no idea what new regulations are in effect this year and their advisories from their cpa are filed under “migraines that can wait.” plus, they truly believe their cpa is exclusively dedicated to their company and doesn’t really have much else to do but wait around for their phone call.
“no matter how proactive you try to be at scheduling and planning ahead, clients still delay providing information for their taxes,” bryan lantz says. “seems the irs, congress and the media are out to make our jobs even more compressed and stressful.” his solution: “keep communicating with clients to ensure that we can do the best we can at equalizing workflow during busy season.”
from their remarks, 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 draws at least nine lessons in smart client management.:
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 annual busy season barometer is eliciting a panoply of lessons learned and plans for a smoother season next year. a lot of professionals’ comments this year are nothing short of outright complaint. and not without reason. it’s been a rough year. if the snow didn’t get you, forms 3115, 8962, 8965 or 1095a did. plus all things irs got more complicated, clients got more desperate and, apparently, tensions rose as cpas and staff stretched themselves to the limits of professional endurance.
one of the main lessons learned is the need for enough staff — enough staff hired early enough and trained well enough. nancy casburn at casburn cpa in lee’s summit, mo., sums up the importance of the softest of software: “staffing is the most important reason for failing or succeeding at tax season.”
if we can draw any conclusion from all the staff-related lessons reported in this year’s busy season barometer, it is that the profession needs more staff, better trained staff and an availability of seasonal staff. given the increasing complexity of tax returns, the solution of this problem — more training, more accounting majors — needs to arrive quickly and be broadly based.
as busy season 2015 grinds down, tax prep professionals are grappling with myriad and continuing issues with new rules, thin staffing and difficult clients, according to the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 annual busy season barometer. but the new affordable care act seems to be causing the most widespread aches and pains among accountants.
some predict those clients will be coming back for cleanup.
tax professionals are sounding off in 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 comments on an apparent upsurge in do-it-yourself amateur self-filers while e-filing by professionals is lagging last year’s rates for four straights weeks so far.
“interesting that self-prepared is up and professionally prepared is down on a ytd basis,” says bea nahon, a bellevue, wash., cpa, and long-time advocate of women’s and small-firm interests.
“is that because business is shifting to the do-it-yourselfers?,” nahon says. “i suspect instead it’s due to the professionals bogged down in the mire of the tpr regulations. and the increasing trend of fraudulent self-prepared returns,”
“in fact,”nahon adds alarmingly, “some of those self-prepared returns are likely going to turn out to be our clients, which we don’t discover until we attempt to e-file.”