| The phone rings in your office. Who answers it? If the answer is you, you really should stop. Why? Well, there are multiple reasons.
1) It takes time to answer the phone 2) The person on the other end is a prospect kicking the tires, thereby wasting your time and asking you a bunch of freebie questions 3) The person on the other end is a client with the “got a minute” question, with the call being completed 45 minutes later (of which you probably don’t bill them for the time) 4) The annoying person on the phone is a sales guy you have been trying to ignore 5) It is a robocall or some telemarketer These are all time wasters. Your time is very valuable. If you don’t guard your time, who else it going to guard it for you. Remember, time is the one thing that when it is spent, you don’t get it back! How much would you say an hour of your time is worth? For most of you, it could range from $50/hr to $300+/hr. So, let’s do the math. My office phone rang 4 times today and 6 times yesterday. Three were existing clients (one had a scheduled appointment), two were prospects, two were robocalls, one was a salesperson I have been ignoring, one was a telemarketer, and one was a networking associate call for a scheduled appointment. The two calls that I took were an hour in total. If I were to have answered all 10 calls, that probably would have been about 2-3 hours worth of my time. One hour was the scheduled appointments. The other 8 calls would have wasted at least 1+ hour of my time, maybe more. I routinely earn about $250/hr (or more), although, please note I do not bill by the hour. That means that I would not get to bill that $250 for the wasted hour. Now this will go into another mistake, but couldn’t I have paid someone $10-20/hour to answer the phone, screen these calls and limit my time on the phone? The answer is YES! I do have staff that answer the phone. I only ever answer the phone if I am actually expecting a call. I generally don’t even answer the phone if I were the only person in the office. It goes to voicemail. If they don’t leave a message, then it wasn’t important. But what |
Category: Practice Management
Big Mistakes Tax Pros Make – Not firing clients
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Life is too short to not work with people you like. Why do you put up with crappy clients? There is nothing to say that you HAVE to work with them. (Yes, even if they are your mother, but that makes family gatherings awkward). Please look at the questions below, and apply ALL of these questions to ALL of your clients. If you cannot say yes to 7 of the 9 (I could even argue that if they don’t meet all 9) questions below on each client, then they should not be your client. They are just not a good fit for you and would be a good fit for someone else. This is YOUR tax practice and YOU control it. Not your clients. Yes, you are in business to serve your clients, but you get to pick who you get to work with.
So, you really should do this exercise on all of your clients. It is time to clear out the dead weight. You work crazy, ungodly hours for what? Just to be stepped on, used and abused? Nonsense! It is time to take your life back. It starts by not dealing with crappy clients. Oh, and give your staff input on this. They will appreciate having the input and will be just as relieved that they no longer have to deal with this crappy client. I hope you find this email eye opening, empowering and potentially life changing. If you have any questions, comments or need someone to ask questions, please reply to this email. Have a great day! I received this comment from one tax pro recently and here is what she does.. “I agree 100% with you! I evaluate every October and clear out 10-15 clients that create stress and chaos. My other criteria is this: I have a bank of 10 file cabinets from Ikea. They are full of client binders. If there is a potential new client that |
Tax Resolution Hot Sheet™ #5: IRS Levy Procedural Deviations for ACTC
In this issue:
- Three procedural deviations on levy action in relation to ACTC, Recovery Rebates, and RRF Payments
- Are you meeting the needs of your clients?
A Trio of Procedural Deviations in Relation to Certain Levies
Two IRM procedural deviations were issued on July 13, 2021, to join one that was issued March 18, 2021, in relation to levy action taken against tax debtors that receive certain federal payments. These are of no surprise to any tax pro, of course, but it’s nice to see the Service still paying attention to such small details that can directly impact the lives of millions of Americans.
These SB/SE Collection memos can be found here:
- Recovery Rebate Levy Deviation
- Advance Child Tax Credit Levy Deviation
- Restaurant Revitalization Fund Levy Deviation
Each memo says more or less the same thing, just in relation to a different source of funds. In short, the procedural deviations stipulate that the IRS must release levies that attach to any account containing funds from one of the three sources. Also, IRS personnel should not issue levies against bank accounts that are known to contain such funds.
If a Collection employee believes that such an account should still be levied, each memo specifies that such levies must be run up the flagpole to either an Area Director or Campus Director before commencing with levy action or refusing to release such a levy.
For 1040 tax debtors with children in particular, this can, for all intents and purposes, provide a get out of levy free card. Since levies should not be issued on accounts to which Advance Child Tax Credit funds are deposited until the conclusion of such monthly payments in December 2021, a shrewd taxpayer representative can effectively “shield” one client bank account from levy action through the end of the year. If your client is eligible for ACTC payments, but is foregoing them to avoid having to deal with potential issues in 2022, it might be worth rethinking that.
Protecting clients from levy action is one of the biggest benefits that a tax pro can bring to a tax debtor, and this can now provide a short-term avenue for doing so, thus giving you time to correct the other underlying issues that got the taxpayer in trouble in the first place.
Ready to learn more about levy releases? Check out CTR-161: Levies & Levy Releases for 2 CE/CPE hours, inside the Tax Resolution … Continue reading