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Are you investing in your next generation?
By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP; CIO, Boomer Consulting - Sunday March 3, 2013From the Bridging the Gap blog. Time and time again, I hear firms talk about how they have enough young people to fill the impending leadership void when Baby Boomers start retiring in the coming years. I recently spoke at the Winning Is Everything Conference in Las Vegas to a room full of firm leaders. My topic was – Next Generation Leaders – What You Need to Know! And I shared with them some alarming statistics. Some numbers that I’d also like to share with you today. A storm is brewing Many have used the analogy of a storm brewing as 78 million Baby Boomers approach retirement age with only 50 million in Gen X as a pipeline for pipeline. Now we can all do the simple math and recognize there won’t be a... -
Senate may consider online sales tax in 2013
By Isaac M. O'Bannon, Editor - Sunday February 24, 2013
In Washington, D.C., the inauguration is over and a new Congress and Senate are back in session. In addition to big and frequently discussed issues on their agenda, such as gun control, national security, immigration reform and the ongoing battle over the budget, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators hope to accomplish is the passing of a bill that would better enable states to collect taxes on transactions. Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi-R, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin-D, and Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander-R, have cosponsored the Marketplace Fairness Act , which would allow states to require online retailers and catalog retailers to collect sales tax on transactions. Because of the disparity and complexity of the various sales tax... -
CPA Select for TurboTax is also good for CPAs
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Tuesday February 12, 2013From the Bleeding Edge blog . In 1990, I was leading a blissful existence as the chief technical writer for an ad agency out of Cleveland when I was recruited out to join an accounting software firm. I went from work on the space shuttle to working Superfund environmental sites and writing technical articles to be part of a turn-around management team for a flailing company that was a tiny little division of what is now Thomson Reuters. It was an interesting assignment, working for CPAids. Because it was a really good software company, and because it was virtually impossible to market products in 1990 that had “aids” in their name. But it was a great learning experience, and one that led after I left the company to an offer to... -
Jailbreaking a Smartphone is Now Illegal
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Monday February 4, 2013From the Bleeding Edge blog . Very quietly, the Librarian of Congress has let slip into law a little-known provision that makes it illegal to “jail-break” your smartphone. The provision, based on an interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), imposes fines of up to $500,000, jail terms of up to five years, or both. It is still legal to buy “unlocked” phones on the open market and carry them to your carrier for a service plan. What has been happening is that some cell phone providers, in order to entice new customers, have heavily subsidized the costs of the phones themselves. Savvy consumers have been able to buy a phone from one provider, break the contract or terminate early, then take the phone to... -
Small business lending and hiring up at end of 2012
By Isaac M. O'Bannon, Editor - Monday February 4, 2013Small businesses were able to borrow a little more in December and the data showed a slight increase for 2012, which a report says is a least a small sign of potential economic growth for the beginning of 2013. Likewise, a separate report showed small business hiring up slightly in January. For the year, small business lending was up 1 percent for 2012 over 2011, according to the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index, a measure of the overall volume of financing to small companies in the United States. Small businesses are often responsible for the bulk of new job creation after recessions. The recent recession ended in 2009, but sluggish growth has meant weak job growth, and unemployment in January rose to 7.9... -
Time To Disable Java
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Thursday January 24, 2013From Dave McClure's Bleeding Edge blog. This is late January, that awkward period when tax season looms but is not quite here that is very similar to watching the afternoon sky as a snowstorm approaches. And much like the approach of a winter storm, the approach of tax season calls for some last minute preparations to make life easier in the days ahead. In terms of computing technology, this means disabling or removing Java from all of your office computers, both PC and Mac. Java is an interesting and effective programming platform developed by Sun Microsystems and now owned by Oracle. It gained early prominence as a web platform because it could so easily be used for multiple computing platforms (Mac, PC, Unix, etc.) and was... -
CNET writer resigns. I'm glad I write for real professionals
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Monday January 14, 2013
From Dave's blog, The Bleeding Edge . Greg Sandoval, a senior writer for CNET, resigned today saying CNET owner CBS Television forced a biased selection of its editors/writers for Best of Show Technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. I am so delighted to write for a professional magazine like CPA Practice Advisor . I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, since the day that Tawn Allen Rose asked me to do a technical column for what was then known as the CPA Software News . He asked me to produce a column at “the bleeding edge of technology” – something honest, edgy and a little on the side of being crazy. He did that even though I am not and have never been an accountant, though I have worked... -
California reports budget surplus
By Isaac M. O'Bannon, Editor - Thursday January 10, 2013
After more than a decade of financial strife, teacher cutbacks, employees paid with IOUs and the recall of one governor, California Governor Jerry Brown unveiled the state's latest finances. The surprise for many: A budget surplus of about $851 million. The state has seen tax revenue rise over the past few years, while spending on many programs was reduced. It expects $98.5 billion in income, and spnding of $97.7 billion. At a news conference in Sacramento, Brown proposed modest new funding for education and healthcare that would increase overall spending by about 5 percent. However, he warned against the impusle to increase spending too quickly. "I am determined to avoid the fiscal mess that the last few governors had to deal... -
IRS expands eligibility for worker reclassification program
By Jim Buttonow, CPA; CoFounder and VP New River Innovation - Friday January 4, 2013
From Jim Buttonow's "IRS Inside" blog . On Dec. 18, the IRS announced a revision to its voluntary classification settlement program (VCSP) that provides partial relief from federal employment taxes for eligible taxpayers who agree to prospectively treat workers as employees. The original program, established in 2011, requires strict Form 1099 compliance, specific audit provisions, and assessment statute extensions, among other criteria. Recently announced changes to the original VCSP include the following temporary eligibility expansions: Taxpayers who are otherwise eligible for the original VCSP, but have not filed all required Forms 1099 for misclassified workers for the previous three years, are eligible for the expanded... -
Six Reasons the Windows “Frankensystem” Will Fail
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Wednesday January 2, 2013From Dave's Bleeding Edge blog . I’ve now had some six weeks of hand-on experience with Windows 8, the new operating system that is supposed to save the Microsoft Empire and put the likes of Apple and Google in their place. Let me say from the outset that I mostly like Windows 8, and will continue to use it at both work and home. Let me also note that I believe that this will be one of the biggest fiascos for Microsoft since “Bob.” Or Win98/SE. Or “Channels” on your desktop. This is, as my maiden aunt used to say, one butt-ugly operating system that should never have gone beyond the discussion stage. A system kludged together from parts of other operating systems that can only kill productivity and perhaps its own masters...