Accounting
Art of Accounting: How do you feel about how tax season went?
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Tax season is a rough, but also exhilarating, exciting, full of opportunities, and profitable. It also provides chances to assess staff and see how they respond to pressure, new opportunities, and interact with staff and clients. It can also help identify leaders. It is a good time of life.
Now that tax season is over, figure out which of the above applies to you, and how you feel about how tax season went. You do not need meetings or tax season retrospective checklists (included in my
If you feel good or great, then good or great for you, and you are to be commended. However, if you do not feel good, then you should ask yourself what upsets you. Try to look at the big picture of tax season as well as many of the little things that piqued you. You need to do some serious reflection and soul searching. You just spent over two and a half months of hard work, and if you are not happy about how it went, you need to make some changes.
Some changes can be minor surgery if one or two things stand out as huge annoyances. However, major surgery might be in order if you are angry about the overall tax season performance. Making changes in systems, procedures, personnel or maybe in the way you work is always upsetting and difficult to do. What I found even harder is recognizing that changes need to be made and then identifying what needs to be fixed. That requires some concentrated thought. Once you isolate the problems or areas that need potential change, setting up a plan becomes less difficult.
I know a lot of practitioners who dread tax season, and I wonder why they never make changes to fix the problems or get out of this business. Being angry and not doing anything to try to fix it is foolish. They are not happy people.
I also know a lot of practitioners who look forward to and relish tax season. These are happy people, content with what they do and pleasant to be with. They seem to always be tweaking something or other, teaching someone they work with something new, and coming up with something extra that could help a client. They also seem to do pretty good in the money department.
Are you a happy camper or do you wish you had a career doing something else? Only you can know how you feel. Figure it out. How do you feel?
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With 2025 almost upon us, it’s worth thinking about what the new year will bring, and what accounting firms expect their next 12 months to look like.
With that in mind, Accounting Today conducted its annual Year Ahead survey in the late fall to find out firms’ expectations for 2025, including their growth expectations, their hiring plans, their growth expectations, how they think tax season will play out and much more. The overall theme: Thing are going well, but there are elements of friction holding them back, particularly when it comes to moving to more of a focus on advisory services.
You can see
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The Securities and Exchange Commission today settled charges with Entergy Corporation for failing to maintain internal accounting controls to ensure that its surplus materials and supplies were accurately recorded in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
From mid-2018 to the present, the Louisiana-based utility company included materials and supplies at their average costs as an asset on its balance sheets, according to the SEC’s complaint. During this same time, however, Entergy employees and management consultants allegedly informed the company that this asset included a substantial amount of potential surplus, including aged materials and supplies in excess of anticipated future use or exceeding the maximum stocking levels.
The SEC claims that Entergy failed to establish a comprehensive process to review these materials supplies to identify surplus, remeasure it and record any differences between its average cost and remeasured cost as an expense, in accordance with GAAP.
“Internal accounting controls serve as a front-line defense in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of financial statements,” Sanjay Wadhwa, acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a
Without admitting or denying the findings, Entergy agreed to the entry of a final judgement, subject to court approval, which includes being permanently enjoined from violating Sections 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, paying a $12 million civil penalty and implementing an independent consultant’s recommended improvements to its internal accounting controls.
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