Category: Build A Lifestyle Practice

Protect your time as your life depends on it, because it does!

Hello, brave warriors of the tax realm! In the grand battle of life and work, your most precious weapon isn’t your calculator or your knowledge of the tax code—it’s your time. Once spent, time is the one treasure you cannot win back, earn anew, or retrieve. It’s irrevocable. Thus, setting boundaries is not just wise; it’s essential to protect this invaluable asset. Let’s gear up and learn how to shield ourselves from the time-stealers lurking around us—be they clients, family, friends, or even our own troops (staff).

1. Fortify Your Calendar Your calendar is your castle. Defend it fiercely! Block time segments for different activities and stick to them ruthlessly. Allocate specific times for client meetings, family time, and personal quests like your beloved hobbies. This not only keeps invaders (a.k.a distractions) at bay but also ensures you’re ruling your day, not scrambling in the battlefield of busyness. Use this wisely and this will help you prevent the got a minute call. If you set a payment system to book these calls and your clients will think twice about wasting your time.

2. Train Your Gatekeepers Whether it’s your receptionist, assistant, or a trusty software app, make sure your first line of defense knows who can breach your gates. They should be skilled in the art of saying “no” or “let’s schedule this” when unexpected visitors (tasks or people) try to storm your schedule.

3. Establish Communication Trenches Decree when and through what channels (email, phone, messenger pigeons) you will communicate. Inform your clients and your legion (your team) about these channels and respect them yourself. It prevents the chaos of missed messages and the anarchy of constant interruptions. I have had this note in the subject line of my email for the last 8 years. “Effective immediately, I will be returning phone calls and emails from 11am-1pm and 4-6pm ET.”

4. Proclaim Office Hours Set and communicate your kingdom’s operating hours—times when you are available to clients and staff. Outside these hours, the drawbridge goes up, and the moat is filled. Your time is your own to enjoy the spoils of your hard work, whether it’s spending time with family or indulging in hobbies. Block your time each day. I always did all day Tuesday and Thursday to have available to meet my noble subjects (clients). But I also did what I could to make sure they were back to back to limit the … Continue reading

Do I need to be a CPA, Enrolled Agent, or attorney in order to do tax resolution work?

This is a very common question that I get from unenrolled preparers, particularly those from states like Oregon , California, Maryland, and New York that have their own state-level tax preparer licensing in place.

Short answer: Unequivocally YES, you need to be an EA, CPA, or attorney in order to represent taxpayers in IRS Collections.

In order to sign a Form 2848 and represent somebody in front of IRS Collections and/or Appeals, an individual must be an EA, CPA, or attorney. Under current IRS regulations, this is non-negotiable. The IRS does not recognize any of the state-level preparer licensing programs for representation purposes.

Connecting with an EA, CPA, or attorney is a great way to be engaged in this work, but the unenrolled preparerer is limited to the tax prep and bookkeeping in support of the case. We have plenty of preparers that attend our classes in order to better understand the process that they’re supporting when working with an EA/CPA/JD on IRS Collections representation cases. In fact, many CPAs and attorneys send their admin staff to our classes in order to learn how to work cases.

But never forget that the tax prep and bookkeeping is the lower dollar value work, compared to the actual representation component. It’s the most labor intensive component of tax debt resolution, but it’s the lowest value work for the client case.

I personally encourage all unenrolled preparers to simply go take the Special Enrollment Exam (SEE) to become an Enrolled Agent. Most preparers can pass Parts 1 and 3 with limited or even zero study, and Part 2 is passable by most folks with a few weeks of intense study. Becoming an EA literally doubles your earning potential overnight, plus it’s also a hedge against the inevitable passage of a bill by Congress to give IRS authority to regulate preparers. Become an EA now, and you’ll bypass any impact of future legislation in this arena.… Continue reading

“Tax Day” is finally here!

If you specialize in something other than tax return preparation, then today is just another day for you.

But if a significant portion of your annual income is derived from return preparation, then today is obviously a momentous day.

You’ve endured the long days and even longer weekends. The cranky clients, the slow-payers, the procrastinators.

Today is when everything gets tidied and up with a pretty little bow on top and sent off to our Uncle Sam, for tomorrow we party!

Or, at least that’s the fantasy world that the general public believes we live in.

You and I know that’s not really the case.

You have a pile of extensions. You have bookkeeping to catch up on. And every month we have FTD deadlines and other various filing deadlines, through every month of the year.

Which brings me to my main point for you today: If you’re in private practice or at a small firm, and are looking to absolutely maximize annual revenue, then the best thing you can do is maintain the intensity and productivity of tax preparation season all year round.

If you’ve ever worked at a really large firm, or a specialized, niche type of firm, then you know this is how they operate. Tax prep season is nothing special — it’s a just a minor extra blip in the year.

I know you want to relax, soak up some sun, maybe throw back some margaritas. And a little bit of that is good. But now is not the time to rest on your laurels.

As you probably know already, I spent the past 8 years as a one-trick pony, doing mostly IRS Collections representation. No bookkeeping, very little tax preparation, no Examination representation. Even more, I specialized in a narrow arena of Collections representation: 2290 and 941 liabilities for mom and pop trucking companies in five western states.

I did this work year-round, including for over 3 years at reduced yet steady volume while traveling 100% of the time.

More important than the niche specialization was the fact that I had no seasonal mentality about my business.

There are “riches in niches”, but the year-round consistency was a far more important factor for me having my dream lifestyle and a great tax practice.

So even though “Tax Day” is here, I want to encourage you to keep on truckin’. Be that one person in your local market that keeps charging … Continue reading