Vol. 25 I No. 8 I August 2011

THE CLOUD PAYS OFF P.41
A special report on how accounting ;rms are ;nding
return on their investment in cloud applications
PFP ROUNDTABLE P.20
CPA ;nancial planning execs share what
they’re looking for in the ideal ;nancial planner

accountingtoday.com

STUDY TIME P.8
Changes to the CPA Exam call for new
;exibility from candidates, ;rms and vendors

See page 29

SPECIAL REPORT

BY BILL CARLINO

“It’s the end of the fiscal year, and states and local governments are having a rough time in their budgets,” said Charles Collins, vice president for government a;airs at payroll giant ADP. “;e National Conference of State Legislators estimates an $86 billion shortfall, so obviously it’s a pretty big challenge for state legislators to either make budget cuts or come up with revenue enhancements.” Meanwhile, the volume of tax changes is expanding, audits are getting tighter, and the de;nition of “nexus” (the constitutionally required relationship between an out-of-state business and a state allowing the state to tax the business on its activities) and of what

Strapped states ;ghting Amazon war

HE WROTE THE BOOK NEW JERSEY CPA SALIM OMAR KNOWS HOW TO MARKET A CPA FIRM — AFTER ALL, HE’S DONE IT HIMSELF See page 10
Won’t
you be
my client?

BY DANIELLE LEE

who sell through in-state a;liates to collect and hand over sales taxes on items they sell to state residents. Other states have signed on to the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement to simplify the system and pressure Congress to pass federal legislation that authorizes collection authority.

See IFRS on 61

TOP RESELLERS
To build stronger
relationships with
small businesses,
start at the local level
See SMALL BIZ on 59
Up in
the air
U.S. adoption of
IFRS is still in a
holding pattern

Accounting firms don’t neces- sarily need to take a Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood approach in dealing with small business clients — but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

“We are part of the business community,” said Dan Sautner, vice chairman of Georgia- and Massachusetts-based accounting and consulting firm Padgett

Small Business Services. “We don’t
stand above them — we are among
them.”
Without this mentality and an
active local role, ;rms often ;nd

Photo by: Luciano Puliti

As such, a number of states have enacted “Amazon” laws to require out-of-state and Internet vendors BY ROGER RUSSELL

Nearly all states that are exper- iencing recession-generated revenue shortfalls are looking to sales and use taxes to help close the gap.

is taxable is getting stricter.
;e concept of nexus is based
on two clauses in the Constitu-
tion: the Commerce Clause, which
prohibits states from unduly bur-
dening interstate commerce, and
the Due Process Clause, which
requires a minimum connection
between a state and an entity it
wishes to tax.

After nearly a decade of discus-
sions, white papers, presenta-
tions, work projects and comment
letters — both pro and con — the
question of whether the United
States will soon join roughly 130
other countries in adopting some
form of International Financial
Reporting Standards still remains
unclear.
While both the Financial Ac-
counting Standards Board and
its overseas counterpart, the In-
ternational Financial Standards
Board, continue their joint work
on a series of in-progress conver-
gence projects as outlined in the
original 2006 Memorandum of
Understanding between the two
bodies — standards on ;nancial
instruments, revenue recognition
and leases, and accounting for in-
surance contracts, among other
things, remain to be hashed out

“There are a large number of
state legislators who took office
at the beginning of the year, and
there are a number of new gover-
nors as well,” said Collins. “What’s
unique is that most of them ran on
a no-tax-hike platform that’s mak-
ing for an interesting dynamic in
the legislatures. Although a lot
See AMAZON on 60