Vol. 24 I No. 7 I June 7-20, 2010
AICPA backs registration
The American Institute of CPAs told Inter-
nal Revenue Service officials that it supports
the agency’s plan for mandatory preparer
tax identification numbers and stricter eth-
ics requirements, but it objects to the edu-
cation and testing elements of the IRS’s tax
preparer regulation proposals.
At an IRS hearing last month, Patricia
Thompson, vice chair of the AICPA’s Tax
Executive Committee, acknowledged that
a unique identification number for all paid
preparers of U.S. tax returns and a requirement that subjects them to the same pen-
WASHINGTON, D.C.
But questions IRS proposals on testing and education
webcpa.com
alties and ethics standards that now apply
to CPAs, attorneys and enrolled agents are
effective ways for the agency to meet its goal
of improving the competence and ethics of
paid tax return preparers.
However, she noted the
AICPA’s opposition to the education and testing elements
of the IRS proposal, as well as
concerns about requiring the employees of
CPA firms who do not sign tax returns to get
an ID number.
“The IRS needs a useful way to identify
and track tax preparers who have high er-
ror rates or are engaging in fraud,” she said.
“Requiring all tax preparers to use a unique
ID number should provide big administra-
tive gains for the IRS and help
protect taxpayers.”
Thompson told the IRS that
taxpayers must not be confused
by the name used to describe
tax return preparers who have a preparer
tax identification number, or PTIN, but
are not CPAs, attorneys or enrolled agents.
See REGISTRATION on 43
For more on the
profession’s response to
the proposals, see our
roundup on page 10.
Client retention
Get your partners out there
Firm of the Future Our special report begins on page 21
When the American Institute of CPAs released its
bi-annual Private Companies Practice Section CPA
Firm Top Issues Survey last year, client retention was
at the top of the list as the most significant practice
management concern.
That may not come as a surprise, given the state of
our economy, but for firms of all sizes, it was clearly a
critical issue, competing for management’s full attention with staffing issues in order of importance.
However, for smaller firms, this year has turned
out to be especially challenging in terms of holding
onto their clients, many of whom are shuttering their
doors as a result of the turbulent economy, according
to Barry Melancon, president and chief executive of
the AICPA.
“I do think the smaller-firm environment is more
distressed from the economy in 2010 than 2009,”
Melancon said. “Clearly 2009 was skewed more to
the larger firms, and the smaller-business clients are
having more difficulty in 2010 because they’ve had
some difficult times for a year or 18 months and they
likely don’t have the staying power.”
While keeping clients happy and satisfied has al-
ways been a priority for competitive firms of any size,
the results of the survey affirmed the need to amp
up communication and resources to maintain those
close relationships. As a result, marketing initiatives
and strategies to strengthen that relationship have
come to the forefront, and finding creative ways to
Firms boost meeting frequency and amp up services to keep clients
BY LIZ GOLD
deepen client relationships is first and foremost in
the minds of many in accounting firms. One such way
firms are doing this is by investing time and energy
into client surveys to gain instant, direct feedback on
their services.
At Corbett, Duncan & Hubly in Itasca, Ill., it was a
younger partner who brought the idea of launching
face-to-face surveys to Bill Hubly, the firm’s managing
principal. Hubly supported the idea and the two of
them conducted the interviews themselves.
The questions, which asked clients to rank the
firm’s performance in various services, came from
previous surveys, and included open-ended ques-
tions such as, “What do you like best and least about
working with us?” and “What suggestions do you have
for us to improve?”
“One of the things we found out is that our clients
were very appreciative of us coming out to them,”
Hubly explained. “The second thing was, they pay
significant fees to our firm and they said they would
love to have some fee concessions from us because
it has been a difficult market and their business was
struggling.”
Hubly said that his clients were also looking for
more information and advice on how to grow their
business, as well as general information about their
industry — in the form of seminars, e-mail blasts and
newsletters.
See RETENTION on 43
INSIDE
18 REVIEW
We survey the field of
retirement planning packages
30 TOP TECH TOOLS
The technologies no accounting
firm should be without
35 PRO PROPOSALS
Wondering where to put pricing
in your proposals? How about
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