Early in my tenure at Accounting Today, I got to sit in on a visit to our office from the newly installed head of a major regulator. Their predecessor in the role had been extraordinarily active and strongly focused on a few, very specific areas, so I thought it made sense to ask our guest if they planned any changes in direction or new approaches.

They reacted as if I’d slapped them in the face, and with icy disdain informed me that they had worked under the previous regulator (which I well knew) and that they saw no need to make any changes whatsoever.

Looking back, I’m sure they must have thought that I was trying to get them to badmouth their predecessor, but at the time I was dumbfounded. It seemed to me then that a change in command is a natural time for organizations and their leaders to take stock of where they are, and to consider new directions, new ideas and new approaches. It still seems that way to me, and to fail to do so seems a waste of a great opportunity.

Why wouldn’t you take advantage of such a moment to ask if your current direction, goals and culture will drive success in the future? A host of changes big and small can be ushered in under cover of the overarching change at the helm, when you are no longer bound by the priorities of the outgoing leader. (Of course, in many cases the right choice might be to reaffirm those priorities and to recognize their wisdom — but you’ll never know unless you critically examine them, and too many organizations fail to do that.)

And it’s not only transitions at the top that offer the opportunity for new thinking. I’ll go further and say that any change in personnel, at any level of the org chart, should be a moment to stop and think and look ahead, to reexamine a position before you start trying to fill it in a job market where candidates are few and far between. The right answer might not be replacing a departing employee or partner at all, but instead reimagining their role; that may take the form of reallocating their responsibilities and tasks to other employees, to new technologies, or to outsourcing partners — or eliminating the role entirely, and possibly hiring for a new and different role instead, one that may help lead the firm into the future, rather than replicating its past.

All this is not to say that change is always the right choice, or that we need to take every opportunity to jettison the past; the point is that we need to take every opportunity to examine the past and see if it’s worth repeating — and that making a break with the past isn’t about repudiating it, but about choosing a different future.

An irrevocable trust is an essential tool in the kit of most estate planners, not only for sheltering assets from future estate tax, but for protection from potential creditors and lawsuits. Depending on the state, there are different rules regarding amending or modifying the terms of the trust. In most cases, the terms cannot be modified without the consent of each of the beneficiaries. 

In what is at least a preliminary setback, Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son, Lachlan, were recently denied their attempt to change the terms of a family trust in Lachlan’s favor. 

The trust was set up as part of a settlement agreement in Murdoch’s second divorce. The problem with an irrevocable trust, of course, is that it really is irrevocable. If the grantor of the trust retains any attributes of ownership, it would lose its protection against potential creditors of the grantor. 

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Bloomberg

Why would someone want to change the terms of such a trust? 

In the case of Rupert Murdoch, observers believe that his son Lachlan’s political orientation aligns more closely with that of his conservative father, as opposed to his more left-leaning siblings. But the proceedings of the probate court in Nevada, in which the trust was formed, are sealed. 

“Most people believe an irrevocable trust cannot be changed, but in fact, depending on the state, there are circumstances in which it can be changed,” said Brinkley Morgan attorney Salvatore Pomidoro. “Frequently, clients name an independent party that would have the ability to change the trust in certain circumstances — for example, to react to tax law changes, or if the trust no longer has a valid purpose. People are finding ways to take something that is not concrete and make it flexible. But by modifying the trust it may lose its primary objective, which is to minimize estate tax. They’re not attempting to change the proportional interests of the four children, but simply to make sure that Lachlan gets to manage the business.” 

Murdoch is expected to appeal the ruling. “Rupert Murdoch, as the creator and beneficiary of the trust, definitely has standing to appeal and attempt to object to the probate judge’s ruling,” said Raul Gastesi, co-founder of law firm Gastesi Lopez & Mestre. “Now, whether or not Mr. Murdoch is successful is a whole other issue. It is difficult to convince an appellate court to overturn a trial judge’s ruling when they are challenging the findings of fact, as opposed to questions of law. The ruling in this case has to do with whether or not Mr. Murdoch and others made the changes to the trust in good faith. That was a factual finding, extensively documented by the trial court judge who observed the witnesses firsthand and made a determination based on those observations. It is extremely difficult to overturn findings of fact. In this case the judge made a finding based on the demeanor and credibility of the witnesses.”

If this involved a question as to what is a law on a certain issue in Nevada, the appellate courts are much more willing to entertain an appeal and would certainly consider overturning a lower court judge’s ruling that they consider inconsistent with the law, according to Gastesi.

“It does not appear that this will be the analysis the court will be asked to engage with on appeal,” he said. “It appears that the court will be asked to weigh in on factual findings which do not have a likelihood of success.” 

The Internal Revenue Service is making progress on whittling down the amount of time it takes to help victims of tax-related identity theft, even as the IRS warns of scammers impersonating its employees once again this tax season.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins provided an update on her blog Wednesday about the IRS’s delays in assisting identity theft victims. In her annual report to Congress earlier this month, she criticized the delays in helping ID theft victims, saying they had increased to nearly two years in fiscal year 2024, up from 19 months in FY 2023. But more recently the IRS appears to be making slight progress. In conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft Awareness Week, Collins posted an update on the IRS’s efforts to reduce the delays, perhaps in response to her recent report. 

In fiscal year 2022, the average processing cycle time for identity theft victim assistance cases was 399 days, which rose to an average of 556 days in FY 2023 and then worsened to an average of 676 days in FY 2024, according to Collins. So far in FY 2025, the IRS is averaging 506 days for these kinds of cases in the IRS’s Accounts Management inventory, which represents a slight improvement. 

“It is sad that a decrease to 506 days is good news, but after years of increases, it is positive to see the average IDTVA case processing cycle times going down instead of up,” Collins wrote.

In a subset of cases, the delays have been reduced to an average of 100 days for identity theft victim assistance in the Accounts Management function.

“The good news is that the IRS has been working through an initiative to reduce its IDTVA inventory backlog of over 447,000 aged cases,” Collins added. “The IRS prioritized a specific subset of approximately 45,000 IDTVA-AM cases in its backlog from prior to July 13, 2024, that reflect potential refunds for victims. So far in FY 2025, data shows the average processing cycle time for that specific subset of backlogged IDTVA cases is 515 days. Since July 13, 2024, the IRS received 5,500 more IDTVA cases that fit in the same specific subset and is averaging about 100 days to resolve the new cases. The combined average processing cycle time for aged and new cases in this specific subset is about 473 days.”

Separately, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a warning Tuesday that it’s seeing scammers impersonating the IRS and texting taxpayers asking for sensitive information. 

“They’re making taxpayers think it’s to get an Economic Impact Payment,” said TIGTA in an email. “But it’s a scam to steal their personal data. Don’t take the bait. Don’t respond. Report this scam to our hotline.”

The scammers are exploiting the IRS’s widely publicized announcement last month that it will be issuing automatic payments totaling $2.4 billion to approximately 1 million eligible people who did not claim the Recovery Rebate Credit (also known as an Economic Impact Payment) on their 2021 tax returns.

“The IRS states that no action is needed by eligible taxpayers to receive these payments,” said TIGTA. “Instead, the payments will go out automatically and taxpayers should receive them by the end of this month. The payments will be automatically direct deposited or sent by paper check.”

TIGTA offered some tips for spotting a scam, pointing out that the IRS will not request personal or financial information by text, and federal government website addresses end in “.gov,” not “.com.” Scammers often make up an official-sounding website address, but those addresses typically have a “.com” extension instead of “.gov.”