The e-file process can now be completely digital and paperless. This article reviews the new IRS guidance on electronic signatures and suggests process and technology changes to implement.
Advertisement
Topics
Practice Management & Professional Standards
Practical Approaches to Common Conflicts of Interest
This column highlights some common conflicts of interest encountered by CPA tax practitioners and offers some practical means of properly addressing the consequential ethical issues.
State Tax Tribunals: Is Taxpayer Representation by CPAs a Potential Independence Problem?
This item addresses whether a CPA representing a client in state tax tribunal has impaired his or her independence under the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
A New Road Map for CPAs’ Professional Conduct When Providing PFP Services
The PFP Executive Committee issued a statement to provide guidance to members and help them uphold the highest levels of integrity, professionalism, objectivity, and competence.
An Overview of AICPA and IRS Rules of Practice
This column refreshes practitioners on the AICPA and IRS rules of practice, provides a list of resources for questions and answers, and details the relationship and similarities between the AICPA and IRS ethics standards related to tax practice.
Jumping Into the Cloud: Are You There Yet?
For those practitioners who have not yet made the leap to the cloud, there are many advantages to consider and some planning to do.
Integrating Tax Ethics Into the First Tax Course
Because students generally are in the early stages of their professional development, they easily can be exposed to professional ethics issues and preferred professional behaviors in common ethical situations as they learn more about tax technical content and the practical implementation of those rules.
Taxpayer Representation in the Shadow of Preparer Discipline
Tax practitioners at times must balance client interests and their own professional interests. This issue takes on even greater import when the CPA is representing a client before the IRS.
CPAs and Privileged Communications
Even though the privilege has been traditionally reserved for attorneys, as the world has became more complex, the courts have expanded privilege beyond attorneys to include accountants in certain situations.
Thinking Outside the Typical Client Profile in Tax Engagements
Tax practice leaders should consider whether their firms have appropriate processes and procedures in place to handle engagements that fall outside their usually relatively narrow profile for busy-season individual tax return engagements.
Mobile Information Security Concerns
CPAs must understand the security issues involved in and the steps they can take to control and minimize the risks of using mobile devices.
Current Tax Return Disclosure Issues Involving Sec. 7216
Practitioners face some difficult scenarios in properly disclosing or using client tax return information. Multiple professional ethics pronouncements and federal and state legislative and administrative pronouncements all must be considered before acting.
2013 Tax Software Survey
Thousands of tax practitioners rated the software they used to prepare 2012 tax returns.
CPAs and Comfort Letters: The New Chocolate
For years, CPAs have been asked by third parties for verification, confirmation, certification, corroboration, authentication, or substantiation of their clients’ financial information. Negative connotations have often been associated with these requests.
Advising Clients Regarding Erroneous Tax Return Positions: Part II
This article discusses what tax practitioners must do if their client fails to heed their advice whan an error is found on a tax return and what to do when the error is attributable to the tax practitioner’s own advice.
Advising Clients Regarding Erroneous Tax Return Positions: Part I
This article examines the two somewhat different versions of the rule on advising clients regarding erroneous tax return positions—one applied by the AICPA and the other by the IRS.
How to Identify a Potential Criminal Tax Matter Requiring an Attorney
This column discusses some of the circumstances where it might be appropriate to refer or involve an experienced criminal tax attorney and the importance of making a timely referral.
The Proposed Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning: What Does It Mean for You?
To adapt to this rapidly evolving area of practice, the AICPA released this spring an exposure draft of the Proposed Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning Practice.
Social Media: Opportunities and Risks for Tax Practices
This column touches on the benefits and opportunities social media provides to today’s CPAs and the importance of controlling or limiting the use of the new technology.
The Sid Kess Approach: 60 Years of Best Practices in Tax, Education, Careers and Life, by James Carberry (AICPA 2012)
A new book offers the principles of the Sid Kess “approach”—rules for pursuing a more successful career, more satisfying relationships, and a happier life.
TAX PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
2025 tax software survey
AICPA members in tax practice assess how their return preparation software performed during tax season and offer insights into their procedures.
