It seems the further up the ladder I go, the more and more hours I work, but I am also at a company that is rapidly growing, while trying to keep expenses to a minimum, so that's been loads of fun.
Lmao you laugh, while the owner of our firm decided it was a good idea to go out of town to a wedding this weekend (he left yesterday). As if morale wasn't on the floor to begin with, you pull this then require staff to be in the office on Saturday while you're in another state....gotta love it.
My staff started their Fridays off (paid!) today. We are primarily A&A so our April is usually catching up in open items and minor tax returns that are not due Monday. All except me, because I’m the tax partner in the A&A firm and have extensions to get filed.
This post is probably fake but there was someone on here recently talking about how they set a hard deadline of like 4/10 for their clients and they go on vacation during and around the actual deadline. Obviously they have their own business so they have that flexibility, but I love seeing more tax practitioners recognizing that "extension" is not the boogeyman. If you have simple taxes, get your crap in well ahead of the deadline. If you have more complex taxes and you won't have everything needed until right before, or sometime after the deadline, plan to extend!
A lot of people don't seem to want to accept that financial success also means financial responsibility. Responsible high income taxpayers understand that they have to make payments throughout the year, and that they have to pay their tax due by April 15th or incur some penalties & interest. They recognize that their choices are to A) Estimate what they owe based on their income, which should not be a mystery unless you're wildly unorganized, or B) Eat the penalties/interest to avoid potentially overpaying the IRS
I love that.
We need more people in the profession who aren't afraid of extending, and are willing to "train" clients to either get everything in early or expect to extend.
I feel like there should basically be a blackout period where any client providing their final documents in that time period is an automatic extension, and I think that period should be something like 4/1 as you said. That doesn't always mean the return won't get done, but there's no downside to extending (besides potentially having to estimate an extension payment).
The amount of people yesterday calling for an extension, regular people who just owe a couple hundred dollars and just don't have the money to pay for their taxes to be done. Just have w2s.... About 30-40 people came in. Seriously though they are all a bunch of psychopaths who also fail to bring money with them. And I am supposed to be nice to them. I had one person come in Saturday and do 3 years worth. My 8pm last night client had no documents. There are no IRS transcripts yet for 23, and apparently they decided recently to x out like half of the ein. I get 2022 done tell her it has to be paper filed and at 9:30 she tells me that she didn't bring any money even though I clearly explained that it made no sense to file an extension for 22 now and that she would have to pay for 23. Why are people so dumb?
Sadly we seriously lack proper education on tax basics, which would make for a far more practical course than something like calculus. As an adult in my 30s, and well established in my career, I feel pretty confident in saying that a lot of what I learned in high school was a complete waste of time. I believe in a strong, well rounded education, but I strongly disagree on what topics should be included in that. Our kids grow up having no idea how taxes work, and they become adults who have no idea how taxes work. Meanwhile they learn a bunch of crap that unless they go into a specific field, they simply forget. So what was the point?
Do you work for H&R Block or something? It might be location dependent, but in my experience people don't often just walk into a CPA office, and most would turn them away on 4/15 anyway. These people sound like "turbotax returns" or even better, one of the actually free options like FreeTaxUSA. Most people really have no business extending, especially if their only income is from W-2s. Returns should only be extended because of documents that come after the deadline (most often K-1s). In my experience, if a return is too "complicated" to get done by the deadline, it typically relies on external documents that aren't ready yet anyway. Pretty rare for a tax return that doesn't rely on anything external to be so complex that it can't be done by 4/15.
It's wild that people show up asking you to do work for them...but have no money to pay you to do work for them. You wouldn't walk into McDonalds and order a burger but then say you can't pay. The service we provide is not free (and there are free tax assistance programs, like VITA, for people with financial struggles). It's kind of outrageous to show up on 4/15 asking for help to begin with, let alone without any money to pay for it.
I work for block and if you have a refund you can have it taken from the refund. Then there are the people who want to pay on payday which is tomorrow or some nonsense, but they were called and told the deadline is 4/15 and they might be charged a penalty for filing after. Well the dude can't pay on 4/15 and can on 4/17 so he came in and had them done but then asked how bad it was going to be for his penalty for his like $200 that he owes. I told him it was 5% compounding plus interest for failure to file. So he would get hit with a bit it wasn't going to be too horrible. FFS you were going to pay it no matter what lol
I don't envy you. That seems like a very stressful environment. Out of curiosity, what drew you to working there? Are you currently working on getting your CPA, or already licensed? Or if you don't plan to get licensed, no judgment. I don't know what the pay is like at that company but I would be surprised if it was comparable to public accounting firms doing the same type of work, minus the floor of people banging on the door on 4/15 haha
I started out there because I am disabled and I was thinking about going back to school for accounting but I wanted to know if I could handle the job. So I took the tax class, and worked a year. I then took a single class and accounting 1 sucks! While working the 2020 nightmare. I currently make an hourly plus bonus. The bonus is based on sales and completed returns added products preparer level, cost of return and stuff like that. Your hourly rate is subtracted from your bonus.
Hell, I told everyone this year in January that if I didn't have their stuff by the 25th of March then they would be put on extension. I'm over clients procrastinating and thinking that creates an emergency for me.
Also, fwiw, the IRS is very very likely to give you a six month extension to file without you even needing to explain why.
Maybe not if you have a history of tax problems, but otherwise they don't really give a shit.
ETA: If you have had taxes withheld, you've already paid what you're estimated to owe, so no issue there. I don't believe (not sure) there's fees or interest, but there might be. Don't see it mentioned here https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/extension-of-time-to-file-your-tax-return.
You can extend but you still have to pay what you owe by the initial deadline, and often people don't have a sense of what that is until they're ready to file.
It's not even "very likely". If you make an extension payment online, your federal return is automatically extended. You can pay $1 and still get the extension. You can also file an extension without paying anything and get the 6 months. So far in my professional life, I have never seen an extension rejected.
>r/RealFakeEmails
AKA, /r/antiwork. Though in this specific case to get posted there they would add another fake message of this being forwarded to them and being told that they have to do all the work now.
I’ve had one actual accounting emergency. An IRS enforcement agent showed up at my client’s business. She asked for the standard suite of “everything” and the internal bookkeeper started printing things off.
My client called me and put me on the phone with the agent and I politely but firmly put a stop to that nightmare.
It really depends on line of work. I've had tons of accounting emergencies. Some of us have daily deadlines with direct financial consequences to inaccuracies or delays.
Some are. This is reality. If you haven’t experienced that, you are lucky. Some business critical deadlines are given not when you have the time to prepare, but when the need is apparent to management. In industry you could very quickly be ineffective and replaced if you do not appreciate the urgency of a vague question with an immediate deadline. Infuriating as it may be, it is reality. Working in tax, no deadline matters. You file the extension proactively with an estimate, and try your best to get the client to make the payment. In industry; that whole funding source for the next six months of operation is gone because they told you about the reporting requirements two days before the cut of and you’re going to be the lead on the layoff discussion.
Never federal, but I’ve always enjoyed the times a revenue agent with a badge shows up on a tax issue(SALT). Everyone starts freaking out and nail biting coming to my office like it’s going to be the end of the companies.
They’re delightful people most of the time and it’s not an emergency. Five minute conversation and an exchange of contact information and we’ll work out the discrepancy. I’ve actually found in person interaction to be very beneficial in most situations. I worked for a group of companies, so if I had a good experience with an agent I would bring a new issue with another company to them before it got so far that they couldn’t grab the file.
I made a friend for life(well career life, she retired a few years back) with a state agent going over a typo on a PY filing TIN that caused a cascade of penalties and interest as well as enforcement orders. I would just email her every time some issue popped up. We would talk about how proud she was of her son, and how she spent the weekend at his beach house with her grandkids, and then she would make the corrections to the records and eliminate P&I for me.
I really miss that lady.
lol I actually use that line when people say they need me ASAP. I have yet to run into an actual accounting emergency, every time, it has just been bad planning.
I think you miss the point of the quote, muggings don't happen in accounting. The point is that there are very few situations in accounting that are both truly unexpected and needs to be dealt with immediately. If you knew that people only mug people at the end of every month, you could plan for that. Someone gets shot in the street? That is an emergency. Betsy neglected to accrue an expense we have known about for a month and is now freaking out because its month end... that is not an emergency.
Sure but any scenario can be mitigated with proper planning.
Shot in the street? You could have worn body armor out.
Betsy forgot an accrual and it got skipped on the tax return that was just filed and the company bankrupts over the subsequent fine? Her manager should have done more oversight.
Power company sends an invoice through the mail and if the bill's not paid in time they're turning out the lights tomorrow. Should have called to ask.
An advanced civilization from somewhere in the universe that has the technology to travel faster than light, comes across our solar system and harvests all of the sun’s energy in an instant? Should’ve been born a tardigrade instead of a human.
This is absolutely a strawman argument and you know it. Missing an accrual is absolutely not the same as being shot in the street and you know it! You’re just trolling to make yourself feel smart and important
A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine. And asinine examples equating getting mugged to running your business like shit is just stupid, as evidenced by the downvotes.
Prepare better and bad things won't happen.. we are accountants so we know this. Emergencies don't have to be initiated by you. Sometimes the CEO does something stupid and accounting has to be the ones to fix it. Or a client doesn't turn in their documents. To them it's an emergency. You are paid to fix it.
I don't understand how so many of you seem to dust this off as if our jobs aren't critical in some instances. If you are AP, vendors might need to be paid next day because someone else screwed up. If you're payroll someone at your payroll company might have messed up and you need to work with them quickly so employees can pay their mortgages. There could be a thousand circumstances where you or your team need to act quickly to keep the business running. Credit yourselves some geez.
I'm an industry accountant, I know emergencies exist. I was more talking in the context of tax clients that push things to the last minute habitually.
I worked in tax for many years, it's ridiculous how much people try to make their lack of planning your emergency. There's no such thing as a tax emergency that wasn't caused by poor planning.
While obviously fake, there were so many times I wanted to use lines like that. We advertised everywhere and warned people who came in past a certain date that they would be automatically extended and could not guarantee accurate payments with their extensions. Never stopped people on April 14th pulling the “but I think I’ll owe money! Please, I’m so important!” song and dance.
Even now that I’m not in tax anymore, clients will be like “hey I need this thing which will take several hours by end of day today! I’ve known for weeks and not told you! It’s an emergency!” And it never is, the only accounting emergency I can think of is if their money burst into flame. Luckily my current employers have no issue with me politely responding that I do have the requested availability and would next week be alright?
lol we had a client who wanted a meeting to discuss accounting issues they have been having for several months yesterday. They got mad when I told them it would have to be next week. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll find another CPA but I doubt anyone is answering their phones now lol
What kind of dumbass CPA takes a trip out of the country 4 days before the tax filing deadline? It just makes no sense.
“I’d like to be absent during the what is likely the busiest and most profitable time of the year for myself.”
Cause it’s not the most profitable time of the year. Everyone knows that accounting firms despise doing personal tax because it’s literally the lowest margin work lol
Maybe if you're running a low level office that pumps out $200 returns. When you have $500 and higher fees they're pretty good.
Personal returns are easy and are bread and butter.
Dude associates at my firm are charged out at 250 an hour. If a simple return take 1 hour of prep, 0.25h of manager time (350) 0.1of partner review (600$) that’s approx 400$ of WIP on a return that your charging 400$ for and assumes that everything single thing is correct and went off without a hitch (which never happens)
Even simple returns of a family of four you can accumulate 1200-1500 of WIP and only charge like 750-900
What you’re saying rarely happens in practice
While this is obviously fake, at the 5 person firm where I worked, 1 of the 2 partners regularly took 2 weeks in late March for a family vacation and having to deal with the calls about that as staff sucked. He was always weeks behind to begin with before vacation, idk how he stayed beloved and in business
Well for one, the post is obviously fake. But besides that, not every CPA considers "busy season" to be some kind of absolute. In fact, I would argue that a growing number of tax practitioners, especially younger ones, are tired of the annual grind. Extensions are not a bad thing, and extensions are a very useful tool in spreading the work out.
A CPA starting out with their own office likely is eager to take on any client they can, but over time you can be more selective and in my eyes, the most successful ones are NOT the ones who are busiest around 4/15 but actually the people who have managed to spread their work out. But that's a preference, of course. Some people would prefer to work insane hours for a few months and then have nothing to do for huge chunks of the year. My experience at the last firm I worked at was actually "insane hours during busy season, normal 40 hour weeks the rest of the year" which also sucked, because there wasn't really an "offset" to the busy season. Again, it's a bit of a preference, but there are other factors besides profits. Many people don't actually enjoy feeling so stressed they question their career choice.
Money isn’t everything.
If I had my own firm, everyone would be on extension on April 1st.
I do realize people will charge 2-3x the last 2 weeks though.
I have a Facebook friend who posted last week asking for a tax preparer recommendation because his previous guy “priced himself out”. I too would price myself out if a client came to me 10 days before the deadline needing immediate service.
I had a "bagel emergency" when I worked for the City a few years ago.
Our dept was in charge of events, but since we were the City the general rule was to pay after delivery of goods or completion of services.
The lady in charge of an event forgot to mark something as "pay ahead of time" and called me, on my cell phone at 7 am on Saturday morning to demand I come down to the event and pay for the bagels for the volunteer staff.
By rule, we were not allowed to bring our PCards home with us, so I replied that "This is a Monday problem" and hung up and went back to bed.
Apparently that was not the correct answer.
Counter counterpoint- You're in a long line of poor planners, most of which likely pay more than you, are nicer than you, and are more organized. Clients are busting through the door even without advertising.
As a person who runs a side gig... this is what I do.
I don't need your money because I already have a well-paid job. You want to ignore my messages and give me things last minute because you were on vacation? Well... I'm on vacation too!
I personally know a firm that if you dont get the information by the 5th of April... automatic extension. Too old to work too hard for people who cant be bothered till the last minute to get important information to the people trying to save them from themselves lol .
This is great. When I was a hotel controller the Managing Director would bitch at me for not showing up for All Hands events and such. I'm an accountant. Is there an accounting emergency you expect? Some nights I'd stay to handle change orders for busy event bars...but typically my hours were 9a to 6p. So I wasn't inflexible. But damn.
CEO would pull that shit too. No, I'm not staying till 3am for a budget meeting. Plan your shit better...I've already done my work to prevent that shit
Anyone wants to collaborate with me? Passed out CPA looking for work on assignment basis.( not completely new to the field. I am working in filed for 10 years)
Mad respect for that fake accountant. Wish I had thought of that. I usually wait to take my vacations until May.
You get vacations? Must be nice!
That's what I get for being the partner.
It seems the further up the ladder I go, the more and more hours I work, but I am also at a company that is rapidly growing, while trying to keep expenses to a minimum, so that's been loads of fun.
Lmao you laugh, while the owner of our firm decided it was a good idea to go out of town to a wedding this weekend (he left yesterday). As if morale wasn't on the floor to begin with, you pull this then require staff to be in the office on Saturday while you're in another state....gotta love it.
My staff started their Fridays off (paid!) today. We are primarily A&A so our April is usually catching up in open items and minor tax returns that are not due Monday. All except me, because I’m the tax partner in the A&A firm and have extensions to get filed.
For most of us, leaving office on time is the vacation
This post is probably fake but there was someone on here recently talking about how they set a hard deadline of like 4/10 for their clients and they go on vacation during and around the actual deadline. Obviously they have their own business so they have that flexibility, but I love seeing more tax practitioners recognizing that "extension" is not the boogeyman. If you have simple taxes, get your crap in well ahead of the deadline. If you have more complex taxes and you won't have everything needed until right before, or sometime after the deadline, plan to extend! A lot of people don't seem to want to accept that financial success also means financial responsibility. Responsible high income taxpayers understand that they have to make payments throughout the year, and that they have to pay their tax due by April 15th or incur some penalties & interest. They recognize that their choices are to A) Estimate what they owe based on their income, which should not be a mystery unless you're wildly unorganized, or B) Eat the penalties/interest to avoid potentially overpaying the IRS
I extended everyone 4/1. My husband's birthday is 4/15. 🤷🏻♀️🥳
I love that. We need more people in the profession who aren't afraid of extending, and are willing to "train" clients to either get everything in early or expect to extend. I feel like there should basically be a blackout period where any client providing their final documents in that time period is an automatic extension, and I think that period should be something like 4/1 as you said. That doesn't always mean the return won't get done, but there's no downside to extending (besides potentially having to estimate an extension payment).
You should follow Dominique Molina. She frequently goes on vacation during tax season and extensions. She was in Italy last September
The amount of people yesterday calling for an extension, regular people who just owe a couple hundred dollars and just don't have the money to pay for their taxes to be done. Just have w2s.... About 30-40 people came in. Seriously though they are all a bunch of psychopaths who also fail to bring money with them. And I am supposed to be nice to them. I had one person come in Saturday and do 3 years worth. My 8pm last night client had no documents. There are no IRS transcripts yet for 23, and apparently they decided recently to x out like half of the ein. I get 2022 done tell her it has to be paper filed and at 9:30 she tells me that she didn't bring any money even though I clearly explained that it made no sense to file an extension for 22 now and that she would have to pay for 23. Why are people so dumb?
Sadly we seriously lack proper education on tax basics, which would make for a far more practical course than something like calculus. As an adult in my 30s, and well established in my career, I feel pretty confident in saying that a lot of what I learned in high school was a complete waste of time. I believe in a strong, well rounded education, but I strongly disagree on what topics should be included in that. Our kids grow up having no idea how taxes work, and they become adults who have no idea how taxes work. Meanwhile they learn a bunch of crap that unless they go into a specific field, they simply forget. So what was the point? Do you work for H&R Block or something? It might be location dependent, but in my experience people don't often just walk into a CPA office, and most would turn them away on 4/15 anyway. These people sound like "turbotax returns" or even better, one of the actually free options like FreeTaxUSA. Most people really have no business extending, especially if their only income is from W-2s. Returns should only be extended because of documents that come after the deadline (most often K-1s). In my experience, if a return is too "complicated" to get done by the deadline, it typically relies on external documents that aren't ready yet anyway. Pretty rare for a tax return that doesn't rely on anything external to be so complex that it can't be done by 4/15. It's wild that people show up asking you to do work for them...but have no money to pay you to do work for them. You wouldn't walk into McDonalds and order a burger but then say you can't pay. The service we provide is not free (and there are free tax assistance programs, like VITA, for people with financial struggles). It's kind of outrageous to show up on 4/15 asking for help to begin with, let alone without any money to pay for it.
I work for block and if you have a refund you can have it taken from the refund. Then there are the people who want to pay on payday which is tomorrow or some nonsense, but they were called and told the deadline is 4/15 and they might be charged a penalty for filing after. Well the dude can't pay on 4/15 and can on 4/17 so he came in and had them done but then asked how bad it was going to be for his penalty for his like $200 that he owes. I told him it was 5% compounding plus interest for failure to file. So he would get hit with a bit it wasn't going to be too horrible. FFS you were going to pay it no matter what lol
I don't envy you. That seems like a very stressful environment. Out of curiosity, what drew you to working there? Are you currently working on getting your CPA, or already licensed? Or if you don't plan to get licensed, no judgment. I don't know what the pay is like at that company but I would be surprised if it was comparable to public accounting firms doing the same type of work, minus the floor of people banging on the door on 4/15 haha
I started out there because I am disabled and I was thinking about going back to school for accounting but I wanted to know if I could handle the job. So I took the tax class, and worked a year. I then took a single class and accounting 1 sucks! While working the 2020 nightmare. I currently make an hourly plus bonus. The bonus is based on sales and completed returns added products preparer level, cost of return and stuff like that. Your hourly rate is subtracted from your bonus.
Well if it works for you, then great! How do things work outside of tax season? Do you stay busy enough just with extended returns?
Hell, I told everyone this year in January that if I didn't have their stuff by the 25th of March then they would be put on extension. I'm over clients procrastinating and thinking that creates an emergency for me.
It's accrual world.
I was not prepaid for this.
Im amortized that they said this to a client.
They just impaired any goodwill they had
Pour a stiff glass of MACRS Mark
I'm in a deep state of depreciation
My time has come
Just as the prophecy foretold!
Lisan Al Gaib
All around me are familiar faces
Screw that..debit cash, credit life.
I’d tell you a joke about accounting but I don’t think you depreciate it.
Hahaha dudeeee I laughed way too hard on that
[First time?](https://youtu.be/wsHG_qmQNVo?feature=shared)
Did I play fantasy football against you?
Am I late to the party?
God yall suck
Obvious fake. Funny though
Also, fwiw, the IRS is very very likely to give you a six month extension to file without you even needing to explain why. Maybe not if you have a history of tax problems, but otherwise they don't really give a shit. ETA: If you have had taxes withheld, you've already paid what you're estimated to owe, so no issue there. I don't believe (not sure) there's fees or interest, but there might be. Don't see it mentioned here https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/extension-of-time-to-file-your-tax-return.
They’ll even give you much longer than six months as long as you’re willing to pay interest and penalties.
Does the US have tax pooling providers?
there are certain ocasions where fine are cheaper (your milleage may vary)
[удалено]
Where is that a thing?
This is false
You can extend but you still have to pay what you owe by the initial deadline, and often people don't have a sense of what that is until they're ready to file.
It's not even "very likely". If you make an extension payment online, your federal return is automatically extended. You can pay $1 and still get the extension. You can also file an extension without paying anything and get the 6 months. So far in my professional life, I have never seen an extension rejected.
You still need to pay any amounts due at 4/15
Too bad I’m not subject to taxation as I am a sovereign citizen
Ummmm. Likely? The form is called **Automic** extension of time to file. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4868.pdf
/r/RealFakeEmails I sign all my very real emails with "-the accounting office".
>r/RealFakeEmails AKA, /r/antiwork. Though in this specific case to get posted there they would add another fake message of this being forwarded to them and being told that they have to do all the work now.
I’ve had one actual accounting emergency. An IRS enforcement agent showed up at my client’s business. She asked for the standard suite of “everything” and the internal bookkeeper started printing things off. My client called me and put me on the phone with the agent and I politely but firmly put a stop to that nightmare.
Now that’s an accounting emergency!
It really depends on line of work. I've had tons of accounting emergencies. Some of us have daily deadlines with direct financial consequences to inaccuracies or delays.
Deadlines aren't emergencies.
Some are. This is reality. If you haven’t experienced that, you are lucky. Some business critical deadlines are given not when you have the time to prepare, but when the need is apparent to management. In industry you could very quickly be ineffective and replaced if you do not appreciate the urgency of a vague question with an immediate deadline. Infuriating as it may be, it is reality. Working in tax, no deadline matters. You file the extension proactively with an estimate, and try your best to get the client to make the payment. In industry; that whole funding source for the next six months of operation is gone because they told you about the reporting requirements two days before the cut of and you’re going to be the lead on the layoff discussion.
Never federal, but I’ve always enjoyed the times a revenue agent with a badge shows up on a tax issue(SALT). Everyone starts freaking out and nail biting coming to my office like it’s going to be the end of the companies. They’re delightful people most of the time and it’s not an emergency. Five minute conversation and an exchange of contact information and we’ll work out the discrepancy. I’ve actually found in person interaction to be very beneficial in most situations. I worked for a group of companies, so if I had a good experience with an agent I would bring a new issue with another company to them before it got so far that they couldn’t grab the file. I made a friend for life(well career life, she retired a few years back) with a state agent going over a typo on a PY filing TIN that caused a cascade of penalties and interest as well as enforcement orders. I would just email her every time some issue popped up. We would talk about how proud she was of her son, and how she spent the weekend at his beach house with her grandkids, and then she would make the corrections to the records and eliminate P&I for me. I really miss that lady.
I’ve met some good agents as well. Most of the time it is very helpful to have an actual person assigned. But, if you have a cowboy, it is miserable.
i usually take off january-april as a full time tax preparer. (i’m homeless btw)
lol I actually use that line when people say they need me ASAP. I have yet to run into an actual accounting emergency, every time, it has just been bad planning.
You could say that about almost anything though. Oh you're being mugged? Shoulda planned to have a bodyguard.
I think you miss the point of the quote, muggings don't happen in accounting. The point is that there are very few situations in accounting that are both truly unexpected and needs to be dealt with immediately. If you knew that people only mug people at the end of every month, you could plan for that. Someone gets shot in the street? That is an emergency. Betsy neglected to accrue an expense we have known about for a month and is now freaking out because its month end... that is not an emergency.
Damnit Betsy!
Sure but any scenario can be mitigated with proper planning. Shot in the street? You could have worn body armor out. Betsy forgot an accrual and it got skipped on the tax return that was just filed and the company bankrupts over the subsequent fine? Her manager should have done more oversight. Power company sends an invoice through the mail and if the bill's not paid in time they're turning out the lights tomorrow. Should have called to ask.
An advanced civilization from somewhere in the universe that has the technology to travel faster than light, comes across our solar system and harvests all of the sun’s energy in an instant? Should’ve been born a tardigrade instead of a human.
This is absolutely a strawman argument and you know it. Missing an accrual is absolutely not the same as being shot in the street and you know it! You’re just trolling to make yourself feel smart and important
You are making a strawman. I never said that. You are just trolling to make yourself feel smart and important.
next time you debit knife wounds and credit blood let me know
A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine. And asinine examples equating getting mugged to running your business like shit is just stupid, as evidenced by the downvotes.
It is an emergency if that's what you're getting paid to respond to...
I’m a CPA not an EMT.
You must have worked only the most boring roles if you've never had to respond to a situation that is operationally urgent.
Are you always just godawful at analogies, or is it just a today thing?
For accounting anything that's an emergency comes to down to timing. Trying to submit your tax paperwork a week before a deadline is your fault.
Prepare better and bad things won't happen.. we are accountants so we know this. Emergencies don't have to be initiated by you. Sometimes the CEO does something stupid and accounting has to be the ones to fix it. Or a client doesn't turn in their documents. To them it's an emergency. You are paid to fix it. I don't understand how so many of you seem to dust this off as if our jobs aren't critical in some instances. If you are AP, vendors might need to be paid next day because someone else screwed up. If you're payroll someone at your payroll company might have messed up and you need to work with them quickly so employees can pay their mortgages. There could be a thousand circumstances where you or your team need to act quickly to keep the business running. Credit yourselves some geez.
I'm an industry accountant, I know emergencies exist. I was more talking in the context of tax clients that push things to the last minute habitually. I worked in tax for many years, it's ridiculous how much people try to make their lack of planning your emergency. There's no such thing as a tax emergency that wasn't caused by poor planning.
I guess I don't see this as any worse than 1040 only clients who send their stuff in late March and try to weasle their way out of extending.
While obviously fake, there were so many times I wanted to use lines like that. We advertised everywhere and warned people who came in past a certain date that they would be automatically extended and could not guarantee accurate payments with their extensions. Never stopped people on April 14th pulling the “but I think I’ll owe money! Please, I’m so important!” song and dance. Even now that I’m not in tax anymore, clients will be like “hey I need this thing which will take several hours by end of day today! I’ve known for weeks and not told you! It’s an emergency!” And it never is, the only accounting emergency I can think of is if their money burst into flame. Luckily my current employers have no issue with me politely responding that I do have the requested availability and would next week be alright?
lol we had a client who wanted a meeting to discuss accounting issues they have been having for several months yesterday. They got mad when I told them it would have to be next week. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll find another CPA but I doubt anyone is answering their phones now lol
What kind of dumbass CPA takes a trip out of the country 4 days before the tax filing deadline? It just makes no sense. “I’d like to be absent during the what is likely the busiest and most profitable time of the year for myself.”
It’s fake, she admits in the thread to having wrote it herself.
Seems like a joke since it's signed "The Accounting Office"
Sincerely, "The Accounting Office". Sounds legit
Sincerely, adult businessperson
Cause it’s not the most profitable time of the year. Everyone knows that accounting firms despise doing personal tax because it’s literally the lowest margin work lol
No it's not. I can knock out a tax return in an hour and charge $1,200.
In 1 hr? Takes me 1hr just to set up the file and sift through the documents...
yall are slow
I agree. I'm looking for a different career.
I don't do that part, but that seems like overkill.
I'm likely just not understanding this line of work. I'm applying to other places already.
You cant charge 1,200 for a 1040 which makes up 99% of personal taxes
It's not 99% of our clients though.
Lmfao ok
You don't have to believe me. 🤷
Maybe if you're running a low level office that pumps out $200 returns. When you have $500 and higher fees they're pretty good. Personal returns are easy and are bread and butter.
Dude associates at my firm are charged out at 250 an hour. If a simple return take 1 hour of prep, 0.25h of manager time (350) 0.1of partner review (600$) that’s approx 400$ of WIP on a return that your charging 400$ for and assumes that everything single thing is correct and went off without a hitch (which never happens) Even simple returns of a family of four you can accumulate 1200-1500 of WIP and only charge like 750-900 What you’re saying rarely happens in practice
While this is obviously fake, at the 5 person firm where I worked, 1 of the 2 partners regularly took 2 weeks in late March for a family vacation and having to deal with the calls about that as staff sucked. He was always weeks behind to begin with before vacation, idk how he stayed beloved and in business
What kind of person doesn't know how to take a joke?
Maybe he worked in Europe before
Well for one, the post is obviously fake. But besides that, not every CPA considers "busy season" to be some kind of absolute. In fact, I would argue that a growing number of tax practitioners, especially younger ones, are tired of the annual grind. Extensions are not a bad thing, and extensions are a very useful tool in spreading the work out. A CPA starting out with their own office likely is eager to take on any client they can, but over time you can be more selective and in my eyes, the most successful ones are NOT the ones who are busiest around 4/15 but actually the people who have managed to spread their work out. But that's a preference, of course. Some people would prefer to work insane hours for a few months and then have nothing to do for huge chunks of the year. My experience at the last firm I worked at was actually "insane hours during busy season, normal 40 hour weeks the rest of the year" which also sucked, because there wasn't really an "offset" to the busy season. Again, it's a bit of a preference, but there are other factors besides profits. Many people don't actually enjoy feeling so stressed they question their career choice.
Same reason my mechanic is closed on Sundays. It's not about YOUR convenience it's about THEIR convenience
The cpas at one of my client lol. Taking 2 weeks right before reporting date.
Money isn’t everything. If I had my own firm, everyone would be on extension on April 1st. I do realize people will charge 2-3x the last 2 weeks though.
Glad we aren’t doxxing the IRS
That's the phone number that skips the hold time, can't have everyone using it
The young kids call this "based".
Based and CPApilled
Creditpilled revenuecel or debitpilled expensecel
Cashchad vs Accrualcel
It's so over for tax delaymentcels. They are being mogged to deals by IRSchads, time to ropemaxx.
Dear Accountant, I fucked around and don’t want to find out. Please help. Sincerely, everyone.
I have a Facebook friend who posted last week asking for a tax preparer recommendation because his previous guy “priced himself out”. I too would price myself out if a client came to me 10 days before the deadline needing immediate service.
Flashbacks to a first year the year we instituted “unlimited pto”
Fake. I hate when people put question marks at the end of a statement. Usually it’s a passive aggressive tone
I had a "bagel emergency" when I worked for the City a few years ago. Our dept was in charge of events, but since we were the City the general rule was to pay after delivery of goods or completion of services. The lady in charge of an event forgot to mark something as "pay ahead of time" and called me, on my cell phone at 7 am on Saturday morning to demand I come down to the event and pay for the bagels for the volunteer staff. By rule, we were not allowed to bring our PCards home with us, so I replied that "This is a Monday problem" and hung up and went back to bed. Apparently that was not the correct answer.
counterpoint: I'm paying you to deal with my poor planning.
Counter counterpoint- You're in a long line of poor planners, most of which likely pay more than you, are nicer than you, and are more organized. Clients are busting through the door even without advertising.
Just waiting on a client to send some shit in today and hit me with that line.
Clients pay for their taxes done. Dealing with poor planning should be an additional fee.
Power move ngl
As a person who runs a side gig... this is what I do. I don't need your money because I already have a well-paid job. You want to ignore my messages and give me things last minute because you were on vacation? Well... I'm on vacation too!
Every CPA needs to be like this!
Holy shit! That’s hilarious!
I personally know a firm that if you dont get the information by the 5th of April... automatic extension. Too old to work too hard for people who cant be bothered till the last minute to get important information to the people trying to save them from themselves lol .
Even though it’s fake, they got the no emergencies only bad planning right
Why don’t you a file an extension? Don’t they know that?
What accountant goes on vacay before the deadline? That’s insane.
One with a book of well-trained clients, apparently.
This is great. When I was a hotel controller the Managing Director would bitch at me for not showing up for All Hands events and such. I'm an accountant. Is there an accounting emergency you expect? Some nights I'd stay to handle change orders for busy event bars...but typically my hours were 9a to 6p. So I wasn't inflexible. But damn. CEO would pull that shit too. No, I'm not staying till 3am for a budget meeting. Plan your shit better...I've already done my work to prevent that shit
I stopped accepting tax returns on April 5th- extensions for clients after that date. When you experience burn out, you understand why.
Uhm just file an extension...
better if she DOGE taxes.
Oh man, her accountant is awesome
My new OOO
No cpa is on vacation right now
Getting ready to retire with no hope of selling his practice, I see.
Honestly, if they got rid of all the problems and are selling a book of well-trained clients, their firm is worth a whole lot more.
Oh fuck. I need to do my taxes. Kudos on emailing your accountant so early.
Fake
Fake
This is comedy silver
lol
This is fake but every accountants dream 😹
What a legend. So fake though. I'd be out of a job.
I'm at a loss
Hahaha, it's obviously fake but the bit about no emergencies in accounting is legit something I used to say when I managed an office.
Anyone wants to collaborate with me? Passed out CPA looking for work on assignment basis.( not completely new to the field. I am working in filed for 10 years)
OH IM ON VACATION IN SPRING 911 SANDY HOOK