It is a common misconception that when it comes to the IRS, you have little or no rights concerning tax issues. With thousands of tax codes to contend with, it is not unusual for taxpayers to feel overwhelmed and intimidated by the entire tax process. While it is true that the IRS is a powerful and sometimes unforgiving collection machine, the taxpayer still has rights that must be acknowledged. If you feel that the IRS has made a…  Read More →

TechCrunch Europe is reporting a deal between KashFlow and Barclaycard that sees Barclays developing a pilot e-billing scheme for its customers. According to TCE: As for KashFlow itself, the email makes mention that the company usually charges £15.99 + VAT a month for its service but that Barclaycard is “waiving” the charge for pilot merchants. It’s likely that in turn KashFlow is doing the same. The accompanying FAQs also makes clear... 

AccountingWeb has an intriguing contest going on to discover the most progressive firm in the UK . It’s intriguing at multiple levels. The firms get to pitch yet with one exception have provided no links to their site The pitches vary widely but are mostly generic as Mark Lee would put it They are all tiny firms – what happened there? They are invited to answer questions on the website …  Read More →

California’s constitution required a budget be enacted by June 30th. Californians ought to ask June 30th of what year as there are no negotiations in Sacramento right now. Meanwhile, there was some news from Governor Schwarzenegger. He told reporters today , “If I do not get all of the things that we need … I will not sign a budget, and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office.” Democrats’ response... 

Adrian Pearson pinged me yesterday asking if I have any data points into UK attitudes towards the profession following this piece from Rick Telberg where he quotes: “If we think the pipeline for future professionals is small, the pool of future clients is miniscule,” says  Jim Boomer of Boomer consulting . “Just as the next generation of workers will require new strategies, so too will the next generation of clients.” The analysis is... 

I thought I’d seen most of the methods of hiding cash from the taxman, but this short story is a new one . It seems that a British businessman decided that his aunt needed £140,000 to accompany her to the hereafter. Well, the businessman owed £50,000 to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (formerly Inland Revenue, the British equivalent to the IRS). His aunt couldn’t take it with her…and neither was the businessman successful... 

I don’t do much work for non-profits, but there was a deadline just weeks ago and important news today. All non-profits are now required to file a version of Form 990. The deadline was May 17th, and non-profits that ignored this deadline were theoretically no longer a non-profit. The IRS announced that they are providing relief for some non-profits . Those non-profits with gross receipts of $25,000 or less can file the e-postcard Form 990-N... 

Once again AccMan sponsor Xero put in a solid performance for 2009-2010, closing out the year with revenue of NZ$3.4 million from a final customer count of 17,000. That was up from NZ$1.1 on 6,000 customers in 2009. This was achieved for a final headcount of 90 compared with 56 the previous year. Xero states it is at break even in its home country New Zealand now with the UK to follow in Q4 2010 and Australia Q1 2011. Overall, the company is... 

It seems there’s a theme running here at the moment. Change. Whatever that might mean. The above video which features prof David Harvey, a radical sociologist , is something I came across as a result of sifting through some of Richard Murphy’s recent posts. As he says – this is taking a Marxian approach – anathema to many I know, often without understanding what it really means to take this path. What many people don’t... 

Q: Jeff, I took Regulation this past week and did not complete my 2nd simulation. I didn’t do the research tab and only completed two of the three main tabs. I completed my first simulation and felt pretty good about it, as well as all the MCQs. Will I be heavily penalized for not completing that second simulation? -Quentin on Facebook A: Quentin – you should be fine. Of all the tabs to leave blank, you did the right thing in skipping... 

Recently, I saw a short blurb on the local news regarding a teenager who bartered his way from a cellphone to a Porsche. There’s an issue with this, of course, taxes. When you barter goods, you’re supposed to send a Form 1099-B to the other person (to represent the difference in the value of goods). So let’s say I trade my worthless cellphone (valued at $10) for your worthless headset (valued at $10). No big deal. However, say... 

With the recent ruling from the Court of Appeals denying Wesley Snipes’ appeal of his three misdemeanor tax convictions , the US Department of Justice has asked that Snipes head to ClubFed now . Mr. Snipes’ attorneys plan on responding to this shortly. In any case, Mr. Snipes should not plan on being in any movies in the next year or two other than the ClubFed production of The Producers.  Read More →

Following on from my change the world post , colleague and occasional collaborator Ray Wang asked me to look at Personal Log: The 7 Tenets of Building a ‘Star Analyst’ Firm . Anyone who is thinking about restructuring their practice or going for the creative destruction model needs to read this. I remember meeting Ray in Pasadena just about the time he was ready to jump from Forrester to start building Altimeter. He looked awful.... 

Mark Lee recently launched a scathing attack on generic emails sent out by professionals. Why am I not surprised? I’ve been saying much the same about template driven websites. Firms feel they must have something but rarely go to the trouble of making their efforts unique or interesting. Here’s one crappy example . Here’s one that’s much better. (check the blog content ) Then Mark followed it up by talking about the impending... 

There are presenters and there are presenters. Simon Wardley , part academic, part strategic thinker, part open source champion delivers a brilliant talk that encapsulates in 30 minutes much of which it’s taken me more than 3,000 blog posts to express. Anyone who knows me will also know I don’t use superlatives without good reason. As the title says…if you do nothing else then please, give yourself permission to spend 30 minutes...