← AICPA Town Hall
AICPA Town Hall
Tax and financial planning, BOI news and new AICPA president and CEO Mark Koziel
01:01:39
Topics include: BOI news DC and profession update Tax season and financial planning Key technical updates Speakers: Mark Koziel, President and CEO, AICPA ...
Loading summary
Transcript82 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the AICPA Town Hall Series, your resource for the latest news and updates on pressing issues facing the accounting profession.
- [00:11]
B
Good afternoon and welcome to the AICPA Town Hall. I'm Eric Ouskerson, one of your hosts for today. Today is January 16, 2025. We're thrilled to be starting off another year with the town hall community. And I'm thrilled to have both Mark Carl Koziel, the new AICPA CEO, joining today, as well as Lisa Simpson. Lisa, Mark, great to be with you.
- [00:41]
C
Thanks, Eric. Good afternoon, everybody.
- [00:44]
A
And Mark, I've been touting this as Mark's return to the AICPA Town Hall. So we're so happy to have you back, especially as our CEO.
- [00:53]
C
Well, thanks, Lisa, and I'm looking forward to it.
- [00:56]
B
Yeah, well said, Lisa. It was April of 2020, and you, I and Mark, I think we spoke 20 times a day, started the day connecting, end of the day connecting. And we were having town halls sometimes twice a week, definitely once a week back then during the, the early stages of the pandemic and the PPP process. But Mark, it's 2025 and the level of activity is as high as it's ever been. And the value of our connections here with the town hall communities is good as it's ever been. So we're going to talk a little bit more about you in a minute and about the town hall community. Let's just share the agenda here. So we're going to kick things off after our opening welcome with the DC Update with Mark Peterson. Lisa Simpson then is going to take us through some important technical updates. And then we have Dan Snyder joining for tax and financial planning discussion. And then we'll end with the open forum. But here's our town hall flywheel. Mark, you helped us create this back in 2020, so it is great to have you back with us. But it's all about, you know, us providing the best available information that we have, you know, interpreting it, talking about strategies, talking about capabilities, and just really moving the overall profession and all of their small business clients forward. So maybe to start things off, you know, the town hall community does know you well, but maybe a little bit of perspective on your background and maybe what you've been doing the last, you know, four years. And then also maybe talk a little bit about what the town hall community means to you.
- [02:51]
C
Yeah, thanks, Eric. And it, it means a lot to me to think about. Starting In April of 2020, I went back, I actually have the audio version of that because that's all it was right. We said, let's get up quickly. We decided to, to create the town hall and it was audio only. And it's amazing to see the, the production quality of the town hall today, many years after we first started it. And it is an important community. You know, one of the things we said then is that we need to be speaking to our members. We need to be making sure we can answer any questions that we possibly can and give them as much information as we possibly can when we know it so that our members are better informed. And I think we started with like 600 members at the time, and now you're over 10,000. Joining is truly amazing. And I don't think the, the reason for the town hall has changed any. And be it things happen so fast and change so fast, I think it becomes really important. So last four years I've been running an international firm association, association of independent firms, anywhere from about a couple million in revenues, up to a billion dollars in revenues, 270 firms in total. But it's nice for me to be back home with my family and with all CPAs around the. Around the world. And so that's what I kind of miss. I miss this. I don't miss the pandemic, which is the reason why we did it, but I did miss being involved in this town hall series and connecting with members very directly.
- [04:29]
B
Thanks, Mark. Lisa, anything you'd like to add?
- [04:31]
A
I'm just glad that Eric, you and I are the reason Mark came back. That solves it.
- [04:38]
B
Well, Mark, what we've been doing for a number of town halls, we open up with a profession update you and I and Lisa were talking about today, and you said, let's put these three items on the opening slide.
- [04:55]
C
Yeah. Again, it's nothing shy of constantly seeing change in our profession. Right. So these were the big three, really, that I've seen in my now 16th day as the CEO of the association. And so just very quickly around it, what has been transpiring? I started with the CPA pathway. There's been discussion around alternatives to the current CPA pathway. How do we get licensed, taking the exam, all of those things? Well, last week there was legislation that was signed into law in Ohio allowing for an alternative pathway in Ohio in which you can get the CPA or sit for the CPA passing the exam with a bachelor's plus two years of experience. And so the day that it passed, I was actually with all of the state society CEOs on that day, and we had a very productive discussion around alternative pathways. You know, the AICPA in conjunction with nasba has the npeg, the National Pipeline Advisory Group, that they've been looking at this now for a better part of a year. There was an exposure draft, two exposure drafts that actually came out to propose changes to the Uniform Accountancy act around first one having an alternative competency based pathway and the second one around mobility. Those are in process right now and I'll have more information on that in a few weeks. So there has been movement around pathways and we will have more information once the UAA committees are able to meet digest all of the great responses that we've gotten back from the exposure drafts. But those literally just ended in end of December. So now those committees are getting to work, getting that done in a couple weeks though. I'll be briefed on it in a couple of weeks and we look forward to what the next steps are coming from us, coming from the uaa, coming from NASBA as we go forward. So that's the pathway. Private equity. Also last week in some big news, one of the existing private equity backed firms now have seen a flip. And everyone keeps talking about when was the first flip going to take place. That flip has now happened. Citron Cooperman has a new private equity partner in Blackstone as the new private equity firm. And that's significant for two reasons. Number one, because it is the flip. And everyone says will these ever have a saleable other party out there who want to do it? But also I think the size and the stature of Blackstone being interested in the accounting profession really kind of opens the dynamic and makes it fairly interesting. So private equity continues to be a topic at hand. There's a number of firms that are in discussions around that. And then finally trusted advisor. You know, we are the ultimate trusted advisor. And I think that's really, you know, was the foundation of this town hall when we started talking about how we needed to keep our members informed was around ppp. It was in the middle of the pandemic because they were the trusted advisor. Their clients were calling them about things they needed to know about. And this is a pretty, pretty significantly large slide that I'm not going to get entirely into. Plus Mark Peterson is going to cover a bunch of these things. But what an incredible year and opportunity for me to walk into. First with having a full majority in only one particular political party. There is potential for legislation to move, tax legislation. You see that in the middle. Mark Peterson and I have been debating back and forth, is there going to be one reconciliation bill? Are there Going to be two, you know, a great opportunity for us to be trusted advisors with our clients again. But there's going to be a lot of information out there before it becomes fact. The same problem we had in PPP five years ago is now rearing its ugly head that people are going to say, well, this is going to be in the bill, and that's going to be in the bill. But until that final bill passes, Congress gets signed into law, we're not sure quite yet where everything's going to be. We have indications and we'll keep giving you that information, trying to keep you ahead of your client and being informed on it. But when will tax legislation pass? Will it pass? We believe in 2025, you'll see something. But if I were a betting person and I look at the last 30 years, you know, December seems to be the magic month to have any type of tax legislation passed. But depending on if they could get it all rolled up into one reconciliation bill, we can all cross our fingers and hope that it happens before December. You know, that has been what historically has happened. But you know what? History has been thrown out the window on a lot of things this year, and Mark will get us into that. But you see all the other things that are going to affect us, the tariffs, the economic outlook. Actually, there's very positive. Our members in business and industry are very positive on where the economy is going. So I think it's going to be a great year for CPAs. I love this profession. I think we are in an incredible point in time of opportunity and we're going to continue on these town halls to show our members exactly where that opportunity can be and how you can better help your client.
- [10:28]
B
Well, Mark, great summary and just echoing about what you said about the economy, the optimism, the optimism that's in the marketplace. I know you've been in a number of events. You, I and Lisa were at an event with a number of large firms, firms. So it just the opportunity for their clients is really significant. We're in a huge inflection point with artificial intelligence. We're going to be talking a lot about that throughout the coming months. We've got a big AI symposium coming up and we bring in the latest information on how that technology is really continuing to transform the practice area. A lot of opportunities in the advisory space. So there's going to be a lot of opportunities for dialogue and feedback. And we've already got questions coming in and I'll let you. You've been, you've been talking about what your Top goal is for your first, I don't know, you're calling your first 90 days 100 days your listening tour. Why don't you share a little bit more about your listening tour?
- [11:26]
C
Yeah, thanks. So, you know, one of the things coming back in and you know, for those who don't know my background, I spent 12 years in public accounting, local firms. Buffalo, New York. Main Street America runs straight through Buffalo, New York. I hope the super bowl does as well fairly soon. But you practicing there, went into business and industry in a political media firm that was a client of mine before I came to the AICPA for 14 years. I feel like I've seen all aspects of the profession. But, you know, after spending five years outside of that into a global marketplace, I'm back here. I want to hear from our members about what you're looking for that AICPA can do to support you, support your career and also supporting the profession. These are important things. If in your feedback in the Q and A, you can respond to the Q and A, just put in the front of that Ask Mark and then whatever your responses to this question. That way we can sort those through from typical questions we're getting in the Q and A around the town hall. We're going to take all that information. There's going to be emails going out fairly soon that we are asking. I am asking for that feedback personally. I want to collect all that information and I want to be able to respond to that however we can. We may not have all the answers for what everyone's looking for, but it's important for us to ask the question and understand where our members are at today. So I appreciate that and I look forward to your feedback and I'll just jump in.
- [12:59]
A
For our audience who may not be familiar with Mark, I can tell you that every word he just said he means. I had the privilege of working with him through from the day I joined the association almost 13 years ago. And he is passionate about the profession. He really cares deeply and I think you're seeing that energy and excitement and passion coming through. And by the way, Mark, you're getting a lot of love for the Bills, so we'll see.
- [13:23]
C
Go Bills.
- [13:25]
B
Yeah, so everybody knows the little QA button on the bottom, you can click on that and give some feedback on how the AICPA can support you, your career, the profession. And if you can type feedb, that'd be great. But just get your thoughts to us. And we usually average well over 500. Mark says we're going to break over 1,000 comments today with this question. So thank you. Well, Lisa, we'll be bringing you back up shortly. And now we're going to pivot to the DC update. And it was a busy 2024. I think it's been a busy past four and a half years for you, Mark. You see, we've got Mark Peterson with me here in our new studio. So, Mark, it's great to be with you.
- [14:12]
D
Yes, great to be with you in the new year. It's always busy. It's always busy.
- [14:16]
B
Can we still say Happy New Year, Mark?
- [14:17]
D
We can say it until the end of the month.
- [14:20]
B
Okay, so let's, let's jump right into it. We're gonna we're gonna kick things off and talk about the legislative landscape.
- [14:27]
D
Yeah, you know, it's busy. They've, they everybody was sworn in last Monday, January 6, in Congress, and they're off and running with hearings. You know, they went through the election of the speaker less drama than we've seen in previous speaker elections. Although there is some pressure on Speaker Johnson primarily around the issue of government funding. There was some disappointment in how the last continuing resolution or government funding was passed at the end of December, which, by the way, gets us to the middle of March. I think it's March 14th. We're going to be discussing government shutdowns, unfortunately, how it affects the IRS and Treasury, which has been a recurring conversation had on those town halls, because it does impact the agencies that we depend on, irs, treasury, sec, places like that, Department of Labor. And so Speaker Johnson's in place. The committees are humming. We've got nominations that are occurring for confirmation hearings to put together. The president's Cabinet, the chairman for each of the committees have been named. They are putting out their agendas about what we're going to be seeing over the next couple of years and what they're going to be prioritizing. And so it really kind of gives us a sense of what we're heading into. And we're going to have a lot to talk about for the next couple of years. Eric?
- [15:49]
B
Well, Mark, one thing that I mean, we're a global organization, and I know you're very connected with what's happening in the in the global markets, the world, around the world. And you know, what's happening here in the US with the populist movement. We're saying incumbents, you know, so it's a populist movement is not just happening in the US by any means.
- [16:10]
D
No, it's electoral unrest. I would say if you think about kind of this movement towards populism against big. You think about Brexit in the uk, Boris Johnson, you think about the first. That's really kind of the platform that President Trump ran on in his first term. But we are seeing this 2024, there were more elections going on in the world than any other, any other year in history. Actually, it just happened to collide in 2024. But the result of that was a lot of instability. And so regardless of the party, whether it was going from right to left or left to right, we saw it in Japan, in India, Modi's still president but his governing coalition shrunk. We saw it in France as well as Taiwan and the ruling tories out after 14 years in the UK. So it's not just the united of this populist, anti incumbency nationalism. We're seeing it. We're seeing it and it's going to have an impact in business and it's going to have an impact on policy.
- [17:18]
B
Well, let's unpack a little bit more about how close things are. You called it, I think, Mark, you were calling the skinny trifecta.
- [17:24]
D
Skinny trifecta. Skinny trifecta. So it is, I mean, listen.
- [17:30]
C
President.
- [17:30]
D
Trump is going to be sworn in on Monday, had a significant electoral victory. But probably the biggest story is how narrow the House of Representatives actually is going to be. So there are three seats that are currently open and there'll be special elections to fill those seats in the House of Representatives, three Republicans. That isn't going to happen until April. So right now, and actually in the swearing in day on January 6, they have a one seat majority. So now between now and April, Speaker Johnson has one seat. That means he has to be perfect, which is not easy to do in Congress and particularly with a narrow majority and, you know, a fractious Republican conference that he has to try and keep together. So and we're going to talk a little about reconciliation. A lot of the administration agenda items, the things that the House of Representatives wants to move out, they got to get that done with one vote. And it's big things. Right. They got to, I mentioned they got to fund the government again in the middle of March. We've got a debt limit vote that we have to take. Those have been stressful and trying to get that done with this narrow margin is really going to be the story. I think everything we're going to look at, Eric, is going to be through the lens of can they do it with holding Absolutely every single vote.
- [18:44]
B
Well, and then you've got now the Senate a little bit a lot of pressure on a lot of red states. Republican senators for 2026.
- [18:52]
C
Yep.
- [18:53]
D
The Senate map is always interesting to look at because if you think of this last election, 2024, the headwinds were at the Democrats, the Democrats were defending more seats. That changes in 2026. Okay, why are we talking about 2026? It's because you've got a four year old administration with President Trump. But really the trifecta, the skinny trifecta we just talked about, you really can only count on it for two years because in 2026 the house is going to be up with that narrow majority and the Republican majority in the Senate and they have three seats which is actually bigger than either side has had in recent history, are definitely going to be play. And there are some challenging states here for Republicans. Maine, North Carolina has been getting tighter. Iowa, Alaska can also have primary issues for a Republican incumbent. And so when you think about again the instability around politics, which impacts policy, which impacts what we have to deal with around regulation and legislation, think about it in a two year window and.
- [19:51]
B
Sometimes balance can be good. So hopefully there's positives with all of this. So mark, update on CPAs in Congress?
- [19:58]
D
Yeah, so we keep an eye on our CPAs in Congress and we're actually, all of the incumbents were reelected. We've actually got two Republican and a Democrat that are both on the Ways and Means Committee. Tom Suozzi from New York and Brian Fitzpatrick. Ron Johnson is an accountant, not a cpa. He was not up this last cycle, but it makes a difference. We'd love more. If anybody on the town hall community wants to run, let me know please because there's plenty of lawyers. There are not enough CPAs. Their colleagues do go to them. They go to them and they ask financial services type questions. And we work with the CPA caucus as well quite a bit. Eric, hearings, the hearings I mentioned, Senate is up and running. There are several here that we will watch very closely. Again, they're going to be laying out the agenda. Besant for Secretary of Treasury is up actually today. That confirmation started this morning. Atkins at the SEC and long for the IRS have not been scheduled yet. I would say this, Eric. There's been, you know, between Matt Gaetz and some of the other, some controversial nominations, there's been a lot of attention on the confirmation process. By and large a president gets his cabinet. So there can be issues that pop up, you know, during, during the vetting process that can disqualify somebody. There is the possibility of losing the vote. But usually these confirmations go through unless there's something unexpected.
- [21:25]
B
It seems like, you know, it's going smoother than it was compared to the first Trump administration so far.
- [21:32]
D
But we just started.
- [21:34]
B
We just started. So now budget reconciliation is going to be the one bill. Two bills. Mark Kozio, you know, already said, you know, he's hedged, maybe it's December.
- [21:45]
D
He's already gambling with me. This debate is going on and you're actually seeing it on the Sunday shows, and it's divided. The House is interested in one big bill. They think with that skinny majority that they're better off doing one reconciliation package that has tax in it, but also has those other priorities for the Republicans, things like immigration, border security, defense. Those priorities, doing it in one bill because they think that's what the political market will bear. There's a view actually on the Senate from the Senate Republicans better off doing two bills. And we've seen this before, and they actually have the ability to do that. They have to pass two budgets and then they do reconciliation. Reconciliation, as you know, is important because you don't need 60 votes in the Senate. You need a simple majority. So for a timing perspective, which is a big deal, and Mark teed it up perfectly, one bill means it probably gets done sooner in the year. Two bills, which is the Senate is pitching, they would do immigration, border security, defense, those other priorities first, and then they would do tax second, which backs it up. All of reconciliation starts with a budget. So we're going to see the budget rollout. Speaker Johnson has articulated a very aggressive schedule to get the budget done by February. February, if in fact he can meet that, it will be a good indication of our timing. Then we're going to get into a whole discussion about the size and shape of the bill. How are they going to pay for it, what do the pay fors look like, you know, what are the things that can make it through the reconciliation process? Because there are special rules that it has to have a budget impact so the Senate parliamentarian could rule those things out of order. We have a long list of priorities that actually have been supported in a bipartisan packages in the past, which means they've got a really good chance of making it in here. So there's going to be a lot of activity, as Mark correctly pointed out. There's going to be, you know, every day there's going to be something in the news, clients are going to be reading about it. We're going to do the best we can to Keep you informed about what it's going to look like.
- [23:45]
B
So, Mark, a lot of questions coming in. This came in even the last town hall, but just, you know, the new IRS commissioner, you know, comments and, you know, you've worked with a lot of IRS commissioners over the years.
- [23:55]
D
We'll work with whomever we will work with Commissioner Long, you know, assuming he gets through the confirmation process. I suspect he will. He was a member of Congress. He was a former member of the House of Representatives. He was not on the Ways and Means Committee. He's well regarded by his colleagues. He's going to have to get to know the Senate. He was in the House of Representatives. But again, he's colorful. He's very colorful. Interesting guy. And again, we're excited to work with him. We have a great relationship with the irs. We have to have one. We don't always agree, Eric, but we've got a great working relationship.
- [24:26]
B
So, Mark Koziel, and you highlighted this. I think you highlighted this in your opening. You were part, you did work in the advocacy area for a few years earlier in your career. So you see all that's going on here. I mean, there's a lot of comments coming in about the tax package. So your thoughts on priorities for the aicpa, priorities for Mark Peterson's advocacy team, and just your thoughts on what you see kind of unfolding here?
- [24:55]
C
Yeah, well, one thing I think first and foremost is that I continue to see incredible respect for our DC team. As I said, I had public affairs, it was in the telecom industry and a lot of what we were doing. But it's amazing to see the amount of respect Mark and his team have in the D.C. community, interacting with congressional representatives that have CPAs. As Mark mentioned, that also helps us along the way for the profession. We may not always agree, but the important thing is to try and represent the profession as best we can. We may not always like the answers that come at us, but, you know, again, it's important to be in the game. I will tell you that Mark and his team are in the game. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves with BoI. It was an incredible effort by Mark's team to get BOI into the continued resolution that ended up on the cutting room floor at the last minute. I mean, we were ready to break out the champagne. It was in the bill, looked like there was bipartisan support. Then all of a sudden, like that, it goes down to bare bones and barely gets passed with that. So anything can happen in D.C. and it's important for our team to stay connected. And I love the fact that we have Mark and his team directly interacting with the town hall community.
- [26:17]
B
Absolutely. And, you know, one group that you work with all the time is Lisa Simpson and her team. So we're going to bring Lisa back up because you do. It's a team effort here, cpa.com with Lisa's area under PCPS and the firm section and all the technical leadership into the advocacy team. So now let's. Mark, you teed us up. Let's get into BOI and where things stand. Mark?
- [26:40]
D
Yeah, no, and it wouldn't be a town hall without Lisa and I talking about BoI. A lot of drama. Okay. So, you know, there's been activity on the legislative in the legislative realm. Mark mentioned that the there was a delay that was put in one of the versions of the funding bill that got knocked out. In the end, there is still legislative activity going on and we're still working extremely hard to get a delay. A lot of conversations going on in Congress related to the lack of awareness and the lack of preparation that small business has. We're definitely in the middle of that. We've got a legal landscape that has been unbelievable over actually right through the holidays. And we're still having conversations with FinCEN because there are things that we're trying to do to make if it does move forward at some point to make it a little more tolerable and a little easier for clients and then for those of our members that service them.
- [27:43]
A
Yeah. And I think, I love that we're talking about the three pillars because I think that just gives us the full perspective and helps us kind of frame the chaos that you're going to see on the next slide and what we're all trying to do about it. So we started with a Yo yo and I think this is just a recap of what happened in December. So just a little bit of the chaos. And, you know, we worked hard to get the messages out via the town hall newsletter, the Journal of Accountancy and social media, via LinkedIn and X& other platforms. So hopefully you were all keeping up with the changes that were going with. Is the injunction on? Is the injunction not on? And what's the appeals process looking like? So that's what December was. And then where are we now? So right now we are sitting and waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in because you'll see on the next slide, we've moved from a Yo yo to a roller coaster because we just couldn't agree on which image was most appropriate. Maybe a hurricane, maybe some visual representations of whiplash. But if you look at where we are now, again, we're waiting. And that decision from the Supreme Court could come out anytime now around the injunction. So Supreme Court has an emergency request from the Department of Justice to stay that injunction, which means that FinCEN would be able to require filings. Again, we, again, we'll hear from that very soon. They could also rule about the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency act as a whole. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything out of the Supreme Court. And some of that, we'll look at some of the what ifs as we go through this. What's next is we hear from the Supreme Court and then We've got this 5th Circuit appeal that is still in process. Whatever happens, whoever comes out of the 5th Circuit with a, with a judgment against them, we'll probably take it on back to the Supreme Court. We've also got other cases that have been going on throughout the year that are still in play. So a lot of legal roller coaster rides going on right now. So that's the legal landscape. And now we've got the legislative and the regulatory landscape.
- [30:17]
B
And Lisa, there's a lot of questions coming in. One, and this is kind of it. You know, Mark, I mean, it kind of talks to this slide on. You know, it's great that we push for delay. Why don't we push for the repeal?
- [30:29]
D
Well, that's out there. So there's legislation to actually repeal it, to kill it. Actually, the Corporate Transparency act was bipartisan, so there has been legislative support. This is in the money laundering category. And there had been support for implementing beneficial ownership. I will say, though, that because of this rollout out of FinCEN and the blowback from the small business community, there is growing noise for a kill. Now, the issue with legislation, like anything right now on Capitol Hill is how do you get it done? How do you get it through the House and the Senate and get it signed by the president? So that's why that having those provisions in the continuing resolution, the funding bill, was so important because you got to have a vehicle to move it. So we would like, I mean, listen, delay for sure. And I think even without, even if this legislation doesn't get done, legislation gives us the most certainty statute. Right. We're tending to believe that the Trump administration will likely not enforce. That's not a guarantee. I can't guarantee anything yet. But the indications are they're not going to be interested in enforcing this. That also Puts us in a little bit of an uncomfortable position, Lisa. Right. Because your filing requirements still on record, it's just not going to be enforced, which is uncomfortable for us. We know that. So I think in the end, between legislative, the courts, and how the Trump administration is gonna deal with this, it's likely that there's gonna be either more time or it won't be enforced. Ultimately, we would like it cleaned up, and we would like certainty through statute, which we will definitely fight for the courts. And then how soon the Trump administration could act again, depending on when all of that happens, could also create another round of a bunch of communications leases.
- [32:26]
A
Right, exactly. And so we continue to get the question now, what do I do? And, you know, it's a tricky situation because, again, as Mark reinforced, the filing requirements are still technically in effect. So our suggestion continues to be make sure that you're communicating with your clients, especially those who have engaged you to assist in boi. But regardless of whether or not they've engaged you, I think it's a helpful for all of your clients for you to communicate about what's going on in that legal arena where we are with the injunctions, and let them know that you've got the legislative play going on and you've got the administrative and change in administration. It's important to recognize also that we're hearing from our members about scams that are going on in the market. Like a client of a firm reached out to the firm and said, hey, I just filed my BOI report and they assessed me a $400 filing fee and a $591 penalty for filing late. Should I have done that? Well, the answer is probably no, because you can file for free on the FinCEN site. So I've given you a reminder and a copy of Melanie Lauridson's LinkedIn post about this, because I think it's important that, that you'd be checking LinkedIn and X and Journal of Accountancy and other platforms to stay up to date. As a reminder, if the injunction is lifted, let's say the Supreme Court lifts that injunction. FinCEN may give another extension, but there's nothing that guarantees that they will. So be ready and stay tuned. Which is so frustrating, I know.
- [34:25]
B
Well, we'll keep everybody updated. And there's, there's a lot of good feedback, Mark, coming in. I mean, there's even feedback saying a lot of this information IRS has, states have. So maybe that, maybe that's, that's part of the discussion that will happen if, if there's some Bill that says maybe this isn't the best, best path forward.
- [34:40]
D
We're definitely going to be in the middle of this conversation regardless the outcome of this. Again, there's going to be a, you know, a policy interest in addressing money laundering.
- [34:49]
B
Okay, Lisa, we noted here in the notes it'd be a lightning round for technical updates. So I'll let you take this away.
- [34:55]
A
Okay, we'll do so. One of the things I wanted to start with was an interesting report from our national taxpayer advocate, Erin Collins, who released her annual report to Congress. A lot of interesting information in there. I thought that the first bullet point around the taxpayer experience having improved was relevant. But I also know that you all would have a lot of caveats around that I know that I continue to hear about. Yes, maybe you can get through on the telephone line, but you may or may not get the answer that you need. So a lot of room there to continue to improve. She also pointed out, as we all know, that there is still a backlog in identity theft cases in the processing of ERC claims. And we just talked about a scam on VoI. There continue to be numerous scams impacting taxpayers as well. If you look at the link to that report, it takes you to a landing page. Scroll down a little bit and you'll see a specific call out that Advocate Collins did around funding for the irs. And this is one where we're firmly aligned. She continues to advocate that the IRS needs adequate funding to continue to improve its service levels, to improve its technology. And she suggests that maybe there's an opportunity to reallocate funding tied up in the Inflation Reduction act, less to enforcement and more to taxpayer services. And we would obviously want practitioner services to be continue to be prioritized as well. So good information in there. I've given you a link to the Journal of Accountancy article if you want to look at the summary. Continuing now, this is the lightning round slide. I'm not going to go into much detail here, but again, You've got the January 27th start to the tax filing season and just other updates. We're going to come back next month and talk about catch up contributions, other personal financial planning implications of IRS announcements. But we're going to save those for another date because we wanted to unfortunately talk about disaster relief again. So we're all. Oh, sorry, before we talk about disaster relief, I forgot. This is an amazing quick pocket resource that you can download from our Journal of Accountancy and it's going to give you tax rates, tax tables, filing exemptions and all that great information. So a good handy guide that is available to you and you can keep that at your at your fingertips. The Annual Tax Compliance Kit is fully available for our Tax Section members. As a reminder, it's got engagement letters, organizers checklists and practice guides. So good information for you there. If you're not a member of the Tax Section, I would encourage it if you're spending most of your time in that space. A quick reminder about the PTIN as you were renewing your PTIN for the year, you hopefully were able to answer the question about your written information security plan, which is a requirement for renewing your PTIN now, and wanted to make sure that you know about the resources that we have around wisps written information security plan. But I also wanted to make sure that you know about a new discount that we we've just announced with RightWorks, which is a provider for a lot of the firms in the accounting space. When we talk about WISPs in past sessions we've gotten some feedback that, you know, maybe the the self serve model from our resource center is a good place to start, but you're looking for more implementations, help and ongoing monitoring and compliance. So we're excited to offer this discount program through White Works and you can click on those links or scan the QR code to get more information. Now we'll talk about the victims of the California wildfires, just horrific scenes coming from out west and our hearts are with all of you if you're impacted by this disaster and so many of the other disasters that we faced in in 24 and 25. But the IRS did announce that tax relief starting January 7, which basically gives until October 15 for filing and making payments for tax returns. It is available to areas designated by fema and we've given you a link to the listing on the IRS site that'll show you what those localities are. We wish we had a more upbeat conversation to start the year with with Dan Snyder, our director, Director of Personal Financial Planning. But I wanted to just really focus in for a few minutes on the role of us in the profession as trusted advisors through this disaster scenario. So Dan, welcome. You're always a big hit when we have you on Town hall, so I can't see the comments, but I'm sure they're lighting up. Hey Dan. Hey. Thank you for joining us. And let's get started on what you're thinking about as the role of CPAs in disaster relief or catastrophic event planning and how the profession can help our clients.
- [40:38]
E
Sure. You know, one of the ways that we think about it, there's just so much going on. And it really is helpful to compartmentalize into specific, specific focus areas. And so you just spoke about the first one with the wildfires in California right now. That's the relief area and that's where we focus on the tax relief and some of the immediate tax implications and how we can provide relief and take that as a worry off of their plate. So the tax section, the tax resources play very heavily there. Then the second, let me go from middle to the right now, that leads very quickly into the next category that our clients fall into, which is recovery. And that's how can I get back to where I was before? How can I put the pieces of my life together? And many times we see that the forensic and valuation areas really shine in this area. For instance, in valuation, they can be looking for how do we define and quantify the lost profits from a business as a way to help with their insurance claims, or maybe if it comes to it, even helping to litigate and represent in court to be able to get those references back. Forensics talks a lot about fraud and how do we make sure that we're identifying and investigating the fraud that happens. There's such an area there. You don't like to think about human nature, but it happens. And so I think there's some real areas there. But when we think about recovery, we think about Milton and Helene, the hurricanes, those areas are in that recovery phase. And it's not a short phase and it's a long phase. So the first section going all the way to the left hand side is really that planning phase. And that's the one that the rest of the country that's not immediately impacted by this. But these events are really a call to action to say, you know, look, some of the areas of the country, the tornado alley, you know, they might, you know, hit these later on or maybe the northeast with snow with, and, or just really any catastrophic event. And so the role of the CPA and the personal financial planning area can really be to help to mitigate risk. Who better than a CPA for mitigating risk and cash flow? So things like the insurance levels on your properties and your life insurance, things like cash flow, when an event happens, is there enough cash on hand to get through a difficult period of time? And in the forensics area, even things like a business mitigation plan for continuity and having that in place in advance. So during the recovery phase, you're just executing on something as opposed to the stress of trying to pick up the pieces with no plan in place. So those are really, you know, three ways that I think CPAs really fit in. And it's a real. The whole point of planning there is to really. You don't want this type of an event to derail the bigger financial plans that people have in time. And that's what CPAs can do, is bring a level of stress reduction to that process.
- [43:42]
A
Tina, as you and I were talking about this beforehand, you know, I asked you the question, so if I'm in a. If I'm in a small firm and I don't have a forensic evaluation specialist in my office, or, you know, if I don't have the capacity right now to take on that learning and getting into that level of detail, then what do I do? How do I help my clients if I don't specifically have this skill set?
- [44:09]
E
Yeah, sure. I mean, and that's the point of kind of highlighting the role that CPAs play. Certainly we have our directory for our credentials that you can. You can look by city and state to be able to identify CPAs that are CFF credential holders, valuation credential holders, PFS credential holders, in addition to just the tax tax features that are out there. So certainly utilizing some of those, I think if we go to the next slide, we can identify certainly some of the resources that are available, even if it's not an area you specialize in, being able to point them to the right place. And so I really point toward the Disaster Relief Resource center that has one place where you can go. The link is online here, and the IRS list that Lisa referred to earlier is on this page. I'm really pleased to announce that the State Disaster. A new resource has just come online for the tax section, which is the State Disaster Tax Relief Guide. And helping to make sense of that, we're opening that resource up for the entire AICPA population for the remainder of January. So I'd encourage you to take advantage of that and get a sense of that. And it'll be locked up after that. And certainly there's planning checklists and different things. So even if it's not your area of expertise, there's some good resources that you can use with your clients to really point them in the right direction.
- [45:39]
A
From a practice management standpoint. I see this also as an opportunity to broaden the story about what services you're offering to your clients and being proactive rather than reactive. So obviously, you may not have time in the next six weeks to start talking to your clients about disaster preparedness. But there are so many opportunities after extra filing season to follow back up with those conversations and really owning that role as trusted advisor. I will also say, as I think about the words of Carla McCall, our AICPA chair, there's so much value in collaboration across the profession. So again, as Dan pointed out, you can go find folks who have those qualifications, have your referral network, and be willing and open to the idea of collaborating with other professionals who do have the skill sets that your clients are looking for. And Dan, I think you call that the role of being a conductor as opposed to what we typically hear, which is being the quarterback. But it's an opportunity to be a conductor for your clients needs.
- [46:49]
E
Absolutely. We have plenty of resources when you get to the slower time to be able to dive deeper with the section resources and really get a sense of how these can really impact your clients in disaster and many, many other areas.
- [47:00]
A
Yeah, agreed.
- [47:02]
E
I think the next slide I wanted to really draw attention to is one of the things we're concerned about is our own members that are impacted negatively by these types of situations. Whether it's the wildfires or North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, the Benevolent Fund is established to be able to help our members. And, you know, sometimes it's hard to ask for help. We're so used to giving help, but sometimes we need to ask for that help. And this is what the benefit Benevolent Fund is there for. So I would encourage you to take a look at that. If you have questions, the email is online there and take advantage of, because if you take care of yourselves, you'd be in a better position to really take care of your clients. And that's what we're really here for.
- [47:42]
A
Really quick note about the Benevolent Fund. In addition to the catastrophic events that we've been talking about, it can also help in cases of illness. So does it have to. It's not focused solely on catastrophic events.
- [47:56]
E
Sure.
- [47:57]
A
Great resource. All right, so, Dan, we are heading into tax filing season. So what are some of the tax and financial planning ideas that, that you're thinking about as we head into this season?
- [48:12]
E
Sure. Just a quick couple of highlights here because, I mean, this could be a big segment, but the idea here is that as we go into tax season, it's a time when you're talking to your clients. It's a great time for you to be laying those seeds of conversations that you can have after tax season. And so a couple things here. Just real quick. We just finished a Best ideas webcast yesterday with some of our cpa, PFS planners. And great job of kind of hitting a wide spectrum. But a couple points real quick is we know that tcga, we don't know what's going to happen this year, but it's more positive than maybe it was last year. A lot of emphasis on what we should do for planning. I would encourage don't be complacent just because it's now maybe more favorable environment. It still means that there's opportunities that we can do. And a big one is the idea of our tax levels today. When you look at historically, we have very low tax levels. And so the opportunity to think about the planning that takes advantage of differentiation between today and maybe future higher tax levels. So you think of things like Roth conversions, you think of bracket management, you think of qualified charitable distributions and RMDs required minimum distributions. So those are things where I think that tax planning leads naturally into some of these financial planning activities. We have a landing page for tax changes that addresses many of these things with webcasts and podcasts and free things and just a wide variety. So we wanted to give you that link. It's there. And lastly, the webcast I mentioned from yesterday is being rebroadcast on February 3rd. If this is an area that you want to focus on, I think it gives you some ideas for some topics that you can talk to your clients about.
- [49:56]
A
All right, thank you, Dan. Another hot topic in today's environment that we mentioned earlier is AI and Gen AI. Sorry about the darkness in my room. The power went off in my building and I hoping y' all can still hear me and see me. So, Eric, I'm going to turn it over to you in case I just go to work.
- [50:20]
B
That's okay, Lisa, we will. And hopefully we got 11 more minutes of connectivity with you in the Durham office. So a couple a lot of questions coming in related to this past session. A lot of people even identify that they've been impacted. I mean, sadly, some people, you know, have let us know that they actually lost their home in the California fires. So regarding, you know, reaching out and getting connected with the Benevolent Fund, Lisa, any, I mean, the links there, any additional information on that? So one question for you and then a question for you, Dan. If all records were lost in the fire, guidance on how to manage through that process.
- [51:06]
A
I'll start with the easy one, Dan, and you can have the tough one. We, we have just an amazing, committed staff that works with Benevolent funds. So just send an email to that, to that email address on the slide and then they will get you, you can, there's a, you know, small intake form to fill out and then they'll lead you through the rest of the process. And our, again, our hearts are with you.
- [51:31]
E
Yeah. And the other thing I would say with respect to loss of, loss of papers, I think we're fortunate in an environment where many of the forms are and information is available online from the vendors and providers of services, whether it's your investment, your W2s and those types of things. So it does highlight the importance of having that backup, that plan in place for some of those things. But certainly, you know, as CPA firms, there's, you know, past records, past information that's on the cloud typically. But you know, it's going to be a challenge and going and backing to going back to the cloud and the various vendors and the different providers of forms. So that's the best thing, thing at this point is to be able to go through it. And it is a long and drawn out affair.
- [52:18]
B
And you've got the IRS transcript process as well. So we've got Aon coming up on January 30th, so they can probably give some helpful insights related to that question as well. So pivot here, Lisa, a little bit. This is almost a preview of a future session that we'll have on a town hall. AI is transforming, you know, all of the practice areas. But it is really going to have a, you know, a positive in ways, a disruptive impact related to the tax practice. And there's a lot of different areas of the tax practice. You have tax research, you have the automation of the inputs. You have actually the tax preparation service, how you deliver the service. What we're talking about here is an exciting new program that we're launching with the leader related to leveraging artificial intelligence in the tax research space, in particular leveraging the generation AI capability. Think about large language models and you think about the tax code and you think about all of the source materials that you need to do tax research. The LLMs and Generative AI is really well suited to do that. So what we want to help firms with is leveraging some of these new modern tools. So we've announced a program with Blue J. You can learn more about it on this link. And we're also going to be having a webinar on January 23 next week to go into how this space is rapidly changing. And this is going to offer firms of all sizes, in particular small firms, some really unique capabilities where they can, you know, do very high quality research, draft Position statements related to tax questions much quicker. You've got a quote here from a practitioner. So a lot more. Lisa, I know this is something you've been talking to some of the practitioners about, but this is something we'll be talking about in future town halls.
- [54:31]
A
Agreed. And again, just the capabilities that Genai and AI itself can add is incredible.
- [54:41]
E
Yeah. And I was going to add, just real quick is that tax touches 90% of financial planning decisions. So this is a great tool for those that are into financial planning to really get the tax implications and really set yourself apart from the advisor world as well.
- [54:56]
B
Yeah, without a doubt. I mean that's one of the big things that Generative AI is going to do, is going to advance the advisory capabilities of firms of all sizes. What we've been saying for the past decade plus and we can bring Marcos and Mark Peterson back in. You know, technology is the great equalizer. It really is quite, quite exciting. The cloud benefited small firms as much as it benefited, if not more than it benefited the largest firms. And I think we're going to be seeing similar types of opportunity, impact, impact from this Generative AI movement. So Lisa, we do have a lot of questions. Mark, you've got well, well over 100 suggestions on how you and the AICPA can better help many of our town hall community members. So keep those coming. Lisa, is there anything that you saw? I don't know if your computer is still live there with the power issues.
- [55:59]
A
Yeah, I'm reminded of your line, Eric. This is a live show. So really quickly, two things. One is I spent so much time talking about how the Benevolent Fund can help. But if you are interested in helping yourself, you can also donate to the Benevolent Fund. So thank you to our DEB for suggesting that. And then secondly, there was a question about if the injunction is lifted, is Fencing going to give an extension for filing? Because originally the date was January 1st for most of the businesses that were already in existence. We continue to press FinCEN on that. We're in regular communications with them. When the prior injunction was lifted and then put back in place, FinCEN gave an extension equal to the number of days that the injunction was in place. So again we continue to work with FinCEN and try to get them to be as generous as possible when if an injunction is lifted.
- [57:00]
B
Well, we're in the lightning round right here. So I'll Mark, I'm give you, Peterson, give you a lightning round. This is maybe a few, a few. We'll do a next town hall. We can talk about this but what are we advocating on related to changes in tcga?
- [57:15]
D
So we've got a long list. Again, I think that the conversation we're going to have around tax, as least in the beginning, is size and shape. They've got to figure out as they go through the budget process that size, that's how much money they're going to spend and then shape. So are they going to offset the spending with other revenue raisers? How are they going to figure that out? That's all going to be playing out and we'll see that over the next few weeks and then it'll play out throughout the summer and maybe again, as Marcosio said, maybe even into the, into the winter.
- [57:49]
C
The state tax deduction, I'm sure, is going to be in there somewhere. Mark.
- [57:52]
D
Yep, Salt is in there. We've got a long list of priorities. And again, most of our stuff is very bipartisan support. It's really just getting it through that process.
- [58:01]
C
Yep.
- [58:02]
B
Well, Mark, I mean we'll give you one minute here. Then Lisa and I are going to close out the resources. We always end the town hall on time, you know that. But just a lot of very positive testimonials, Mark, on what this town hall means to this community. So that will be one of the big feedback points and the messages to you.
- [58:23]
C
Yeah, no, I appreciate hearing that and it's always good to hear when we got something right. And I think there's a lot of things right and I think the town hall highlights that. One of the things I was remiss in not mentioning before, as you know, we talked about the Benevolent Fund. There's a lot of ways that our members can help. And, and I think the Political Action Committee and the AICPA PAC is another important way that we all have to understand that that's a part of it. And I'll have to go back to my due statement. I hope I'm at the max of 500 a year. I was for a period of time, I don't know how many years in a row I was doing that. But I do think that it's really important to give the D.C. they are a small but mighty team and I can't stress that enough how much they're able to get with the limited resources they have and PAC contributions. It's a pay to play environment in D.C. always and we have to be a part of that.
- [59:24]
B
Thanks, Mark. Well, great. Thank you. Marcozil, Mark Peterson, Dan Snyder, we look forward to having you back with us on the future town halls. So Lisa, let's just clear these slides. Here's a nice slide, a reference slide for everybody. We'll be sharing this in future town halls as well. Well, top Top Issues Survey Resource roadmap.
- [59:49]
A
Yeah, and this Quick reminder to download the slides and you'll have live links to all of these.
- [59:54]
B
Well said. Here's the Town Hall Rebroadcast. We will be having the rebroadcast on Tuesday, January 21st. You've got the Martha Luther King Holiday and the inauguration on Monday, so we moved that out one day. Here's a slide about Town hall resources. Please do leverage these. Then finally, Lisa and I and Mark Peterson, along with our AON partners Sarah Ferencz and Stan Sternum will be with you on January 30th. So great kicking off 2025 with you. Thank you very much. Thanks Mark. Thanks Lisa. We look forward to being back with you later this month.
- [60:34]
A
Thank you for your participation. You can now subscribe to the AICPA Town Hall Series on your favorite podcast platform, as well as watch archives on YouTube and AICPA TV. Tune in for live broadcasts Thursdays at 3pm Eastern Time.
- [60:52]
F
This podcast is designed to provide illustrative information with respect to the subject matter covered and does not represent an official opinion or position of the AICPA or AICPA.org it is provided with the understanding that The AICPA and AICPA.org are not engaged in offering legal, accounting or other professional service. If such advice or expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. The AICPA and AICPA.org make no representations, warranties or guarantees as to, and assume no responsibility for the content or application of the material contained herein, and especially disclaim all liability for any damages arising out of the use of, reference to, or reliance on such material.