There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.
Roger Harris: Hello again everybody. This is Roger Harris along with Andy Schwab. And it's another federal tax update podcast. And that's true anywhere in your hometown of Dallas, Texas. We are. Why are we here? We are at because it's pretty damn hot. Why are we here?
Annie Schwab: Well, I know it is hot. I'm not going to lie. It's about 112 heat index. But we're here for the IRS National Tax Forum. So [00:00:30] we are here with 4000 people, I believe 4000 attendees. We've got a booth here in the vendor hall. And, um, we're meeting people, attending classes, getting see networking.
Roger Harris: It's and we thought we'd give you a flavor of what a forum is all about. So, uh, we're going to interview some people who are from the IRS. Yeah, we're going to talk about some of the associations here and why they're here. So hopefully at the end of this you [00:01:00] will get a sense of what these forms are like. Yep. Um, if you haven't been to one, why, you might want to consider it. Absolutely. We'll talk about why we're here. Yeah. Uh, other than just to come to Dallas. So, uh, we hope you enjoy us a little something different. It's not something normally done, but we thought to give you a sense of what the IRS forms like. So we got 6 or 7 guests, and I guess it's. It's going to be great. Let's go talk to them.
Annie Schwab: Yeah, let's do it.
Roger Harris: All right, let's go.
Annie Schwab: Jeff [00:01:30] Phillips here. He's he's got his pageant shirt on. He's got a big smile. We're sitting here at our pageant booth. Um, Jeff, thank you for joining us here today.
Jeff Phillips: Can you believe it's 105 degrees in Dallas right now?
Annie Schwab: But the heat index is, like, 112.
Jeff Phillips: Oh, Annie. Yeah. Glad we're inside.
Annie Schwab: Down the road. So I know.
Jeff Phillips: I'm glad we're inside a big conference center and air conditioning, but it's good to see you both.
Annie Schwab: Thank you, thank you.
Roger Harris: Well, why is pageant. Why are we at this forum? Form? Yeah. We didn't come here to do a podcast. No.
Jeff Phillips: This [00:02:00] is our third forum that we've all been at. I know, Roger, you've been at or you're going to all five. I'll be at all five.
Roger Harris: And so we.
Jeff Phillips: Are here recruiting franchisees and telling accounting firm owners about all the benefits of enrolling their firm in Paget. I mean, there are, what, 4000 firms.
Roger Harris: 4000 mostly firm owners, mostly firm owners.
Jeff Phillips: We have. Ah, it is uh, we've been here for, what, an hour and a half? And we've already met with 200 ish firm owners. [00:02:30] So it's a great place because these owners, um, are, are here trying to figure out solutions to practice management. They're dealing with with things like they're stuck in their practice. They're dealing with pricing questions. And my price too low. I feel like I am. How do I hire? How do I get marketing done? How do I select technology for my firm. So these are all things that Paget is uniquely designed to solve for them. So we're here trying to tell these owners about all that we have [00:03:00] to offer for them and get them into this, this organization.
Roger Harris: Yeah. And this is the start of a much longer process. Obviously, this is kind of introduce ourselves to talk about who we are and find the people that we're the right fit for, because it's not everybody here needs us.
Jeff Phillips: Not everybody here needs this. But but it's been fun telling owners about pageant. So what they what we bring to the table for them, as you both know, is it's a it's a practice management solution for owners. So firm owners like all these good folks [00:03:30] here can convert their firm into a franchise. They don't have to lose their name.
Annie Schwab: Or identity.
Jeff Phillips: Or their brand if they built one up, but they get all the benefits of being a part of a large national franchise. With over 150 owners in the United States and 100in Canada. So we're telling them about our centralized marketing services. I mean, we no one here is doing marketing, and they need to be you should be spending ten, 15% of your time and 1,015% of your budget on marketing activities. We do a lot of that for owners. [00:04:00] We go out and select their technology stack. You know, that's such an important part. And then go and get discounts on the technology and train and support them. They don't know about that. We offer them a playbook on how to run a profitable accounting business and tax business and payroll. And, you know, it's all part of this pageant community. We've got nearly like like I said earlier, 250 owners in North America. We play as a team, even though we're all independent owners. You shouldn't go through this alone. So they that resonates with them. And we're trying to tell [00:04:30] them about the services where they can join up with pageant.
Annie Schwab: Most of the folks that I was talking to today, I feel like they're wearing the hat of all the roles. They're the tax preparer, they're the marketing team. They're the, you know, putting out the fires. They're the ones selecting the technology, dealing with, you know, the day to day business. And it's overwhelming. You can see it in their face. You can see it that.
Jeff Phillips: Since I'm getting Annie, is that they're supposed to be wearing all those hats, but they're not. They're mostly just involved in the [00:05:00] business and dealing with responding to clients and troubleshooting problems. So they're not taking the time because they don't have the time capacity to do these other things, which is why I think our message resonates with them. It's like, I could hand this over to Paget.
Annie Schwab: Look at our puzzle piece. Yeah, we've got our puzzle piece of all the sections that come together. Right.
Jeff Phillips: It's all the pieces of the puzzle. You can't run a business or especially an accounting firm without addressing your technology, your marketing, your own mindset. Um, you need a part of a community. You need to be part of a community. [00:05:30] So it takes a little while when we're talking to these owners, explaining them what Paget is. But once we do, they're like, I didn't know this was even available to me, you know?
Roger Harris: Yeah, most people don't know who we are or have never come into contact with us. This is their first exposure to to a company that does what we do.
Annie Schwab: And when you say franchise, a lot of times you get like this all of a sudden, oh no, no no, no. Yeah. You know, that's not what I'm looking for. That's not that's not what I want for my business. But we are very unique. Yeah. And [00:06:00] it's not like you're buying into a McDonald's, right? I mean, there's a lot of autonomy, right? Um, you remain independent.
Jeff Phillips: Yeah. You can even keep your own local branding if you've got a brand that stands out. You don't have to use ours. You still benefit from our marketing. Yeah. And and people do tense up when you say it's a franchise, right? Because there are some other brands in the world that that probably have turned them off to that concept. But then once you explain what you get for what it costs, it's a no brainer. I mean, the biggest reason [00:06:30] why you should want to be in a franchise is we don't make money unless you're making money. So we have a partnership, a vested interest. Our interests are aligned. You know, it's it's a it's a true business partnership. And both people win.
Annie Schwab: We've got tax support accounting support Before technology. We, you know, Roger and I, we do the federal tax podcast, but we also do our own internal webinars and training and and help with pricing. And I mean, it's really [00:07:00] it's fun. I have fun at work. I don't know about you guys, but I have a good time.
Roger Harris: We had a franchisee. We were we were we last I can't remember which one was in Baltimore, but last time we were together was in Orlando, right? Yeah. And one of our franchisees was attending the forum and and I thought said it best when they came. We do a happy hour at the end of our time here for people that we've talked to. And, and she described this as being I'm independent, but I'm not alone. Right. And, and I thought that was a perfect way [00:07:30] of kind of what we try to set up with our people. Yeah, we're independent, but we're here and you're never alone and you don't know when you need us.
Jeff Phillips: You're not alone. And I think we just got back from a trip to Aruba with some of our largest owners, and there was no business discussed officially, but basically everybody was helping each other along. And that's a part of this not being alone piece of this is it's a team of independent owners who are kind [00:08:00] of following the same system. But there really is a great community here. I mean, our owners lift each other up, help each other out. We have mastermind groups. I'm glad you brought up tax support, because I think about owners and how busy they are. And every tax question is a gray area question, but you can call and get a second opinion from an EA or a CPA on your team. Yeah, or their staff can call you, which frees up time for the owner and how that's we help.
Annie Schwab: With the technology, the tax return preparation process, e-filing, [00:08:30] you know all of it. And well and we.
Roger Harris: Try to be proactive in things like if you think of employee retention, credit and beneficial ownership, where we just put the whole package together for you. So right when it's time for you to go deal with it or talk to your clients about it. We've given you not only the technical details of it. We've given you how to market it, how to price it, how to choose the whole package.
Jeff Phillips: Just handing you a playbook.
Roger Harris: Here it is. Yeah. Go do it.
Jeff Phillips: Yeah. Roger, when you said about the IRC, there [00:09:00] are firms that we're talking to here at this forum that are that are still learning what the IRC really is. Right. And they, they learned about it and tried to implement it years after our clients were getting paid on the IRC because of the playbooks that you guys set up. Yeah. And so you we have your back. I mean, who wouldn't want to have that kind of support and leadership and partnership from a franchisor? So I'm pro franchise.
Roger Harris: Yeah. Because I've heard a lot of people here [00:09:30] and because because I do a session on Monday nights that's kind of practice management related. And a lot of people said the reason they didn't do the IRC is they just it came in the middle of tax season. They didn't have bandwidth. They didn't have time to figure it out and to implement it where our offices could, because we did it. And so in the middle of tax season, I tell people, our folks have been paid and your folks haven't even applied.
Jeff Phillips: All right. All they had to do was send the letters we wrote. [00:10:00] Use the calculator we built. We briefed them on it, and they. Yeah, they had to make an outreach to their client, but that didn't take much.
Annie Schwab: Any type of I mean, tax law changes all the time. And that's our that's part of my, my daily job is to make sure that when something new comes out the next time, next week, next month, the next tax chat, the next presentation webinar, I have it all there, ready for them so that I can deliver it to them. And they're not spending hours of their time reading all the articles or diving through the FAQs. [00:10:30] We can develop it, customize it. We call it Paget ize it, but we can we can put our own spin on it. And yeah.
Roger Harris: And then another part of what we call tax support. Yeah. That I think maybe we don't appreciate enough until it happens is we're all. How many firms have we kept viable during a busy time of the year due to health or in some cases, death of either the owner or a critical employee? So where did that insurance [00:11:00] policy that your company has that if something happens to a key person, the business doesn't just.
Annie Schwab: Well, several times during Covid unfortunately. But we've also stepped up for offices, you know, through natural disasters where we need to access their system because we built the processes. My team we can access. We know where their files are stored, we know where their data is. There's there's referencing across, you know, clients that we're familiar with. And so we can step in. We [00:11:30] can find out where the status of these tax returns, what needs to get done, what's on hold, what needs to be on extension, what can't be on extension. And sometimes it's just having someone just come in and take care of business for you for a few days, that pulls you out of the hospital or lets you, you know, grieve if you need to grieve, lets you whatever, whatever the whatever the scenario. Um, knowing that somebody's got your back.
Jeff Phillips: You never think about that would be something you need until you need it happens. And your team has literally saved firms where an [00:12:00] owner unfortunately passed away or became sick or there was a natural disaster, and that the surviving members could sell the practice or turn it over to and just kept it alive, you know, kept it going.
Annie Schwab: I mean, we've had things where just, you know, they lose a key employee at a bad time and they just need, you know, a couple of hours of help from us. But we can manage that, you know? Or it could be something where we step in and we run it for some time. But you know, the past, you know, that's all part of being a franchise. We don't charge you for that. You know, we we rescue because you're part of the family. [00:12:30]
Jeff Phillips: That's one of the other things I've heard a lot at this, uh, this IRS tax forum is questions about succession and retirement. And I think that is another thing that makes Paget really unique. So for firms that enroll in Paget, existing firms that become a Paget member, there's plenty of opportunity to buy out practices, which is a great way to grow. We're operating on the same system. We're using the same software. Yeah. On the flip side, owners that join Paget that are getting close [00:13:00] to retirement, they've got a system wide network of firms to buy your practice. That's on a system. Right. So I think it's a win win. Some of the owners we signed up just last year who joined Paget, have already acquired retiring Paget firms, which is a win for the retiree. They got a great value because it kept in the system and the owners grew their businesses tremendously by finding a retiring firm. It's pretty cool when you have 150 owners in the United States. I mean, we're the cycle. That cycle. Yeah.
Roger Harris: And [00:13:30] equally important, during that time you're with Paget, this comes up at the session I do on Monday nights. We get your firm ready for that event so that when it's time to sell, it's an attractive firm. Yeah, right. All the bad stuff has been kind of pulled out of it. So that because I asked people in that class, I said right now, how many people would buy your own firm? And most of them admit no one would.
Jeff Phillips: So that's a scary question to ask. And you're right. Like, we will take owners through a process [00:14:00] to. And at the end of the day, you want to maximize your value and retire and not be surprised and disappointed when you look to sell your firm. Well, do you have pricing that is increasing every year? What's your profit margin look like? How many hours are you working? Can you predictably and repeatably get clients or hires and all these pieces that you can't ignore? We we help you through that process. And when you check those boxes, you're increasing the [00:14:30] enterprise value of the firm. You're not going to be surprised. You're going to get a great multiple when you sell.
Annie Schwab: And don't forget about work life balance. We are strong promoters of yeah, you know, what's the most important thing to you? And if it's making a little league game or taking a vacation with your family for the month of June or whatever it may be, you know, if you make it a priority, we will help you get to that to reach your goals.
Jeff Phillips: It's got to be a priority. I think you can't sell a firm where the owner has his working Saturdays and Sundays 90 [00:15:00] hours a week. Who, to Roger's question, who wants to buy that? Who's. Who's signing up to write a check for that job? Nobody. But now flip it and say you've got a business that's generating a lot of income to the owner. And I have a balance in working a more traditional workweek. And I've got I've got the the dashboard looks great. That's what they want to buy. I can step in and run a successful practice like we build you towards that. Yeah.
Roger Harris: All right. Before we wrap up, since this is the last [00:15:30] forum this year, if they want to learn more about magic, they can can't find us at another forum, how do they learn more about us?
Jeff Phillips: Yeah. Pageant advisors. Com. There's a there's a section on our website about joining pageant, becoming a franchisee. Um, we we explain the process for converting an existing firm into a pageant and what that looks like. We have a really simple three step process that takes about an hour and a half of someone's time to kind of go through their due diligence. And if they if they like what they hear in that an hour and a half and an hour and a half to see if it could completely change [00:16:00] the trajectory of your firm as a trade worth making. If you like that, then we'll fly you to our corporate headquarters and meet the whole team that's going to work for you when you become a pageant franchisee.
Roger Harris: And next year, we don't know where or when yet, but we'll be back.
Jeff Phillips: We will we will be back at the forums. Yeah. I'll see you. I'll see you here.
Roger Harris: Come see us. All right Jeff thank you man. Good to see you as always.
Jeff Phillips: It's been a lot of fun. Love your podcast.
Roger Harris: Thank you. Thanks.
Roger Harris: All right. We're back in Dallas. Annie and I and I have the best dressed [00:16:30] guy in Dallas is our guest and a good friend of mine, Mr. Mel Hardy, who is the Director of National Public Liaison. Mel, thank you for doing this.
Mel Hardy: Thank you, Roger, for having me. It's an honor.
Roger Harris: Well, it is really an honor to have you sit down and Mel and I go back a while.
Mel Hardy: Yes. We do.
Roger Harris: And we were doing this. I said, well, we got a call from Mel.
Annie Schwab: And I've seen him run this all over the place for the last day. Well, you know, I don't know how you keep up with where you got to be and all kinds of stuff, so thank you.
Roger Harris: It's a real challenge. But, um, you know, the forms [00:17:00] are something that, um, really, it's a labor of love. And I'll talk more about it in a minute, but, yeah, it's it's it's busy.
Annie Schwab: Thank you for taking time.
Roger Harris: Out about MPL. What its what its role is within the IRS. Sure, sure. It's probably not something the average person out there know necessarily come in contact with.
Mel Hardy: No not at all. But um, MPL which is National Public Liaison is um an important division within communication. Liaison. That's the division that I work in. And the chief of Communication [00:17:30] and Liaison. We affectionately call it the C and L is A Terry Lemons, right?
Mel Hardy: And so now I actually have two branches, but the one branch that I have that is completely devoted to the forms, I mean, all year long they're working on it and we work with our contractor who helps us get the space, who helps us get the hotel, uh, who does all that sort of logistic work. But NPL is really [00:18:00] an organization that interacts with people like you. Roger. Um, sort of the tax professional community. Um, we do engage with the payroll industry as well. I have another branch that deals with them. They have a reporting agents form that they have, uh, they have a monthly payroll call. But NPL is really sort of a forward facing outreach organization. Um, that's what we do. And it's great Because what happens is the individuals that we're dealing [00:18:30] with actually want to deal with the IRS. So it's not that sort of antagonistic. You know, the big bad IRS.
Annie Schwab: Relationship is strong.
Mel Hardy: It's very strong. In fact, um, Roger is is is someone that I really admire and like over these years. And he's just he's so down to earth and humble. But I mean, you know, for instance, here at the forums. Roger, uh, just got out of a meeting with the with the commissioner, so it's, uh, you know, NPL working with our external stakeholders, [00:19:00] our external partners. This is the culmination of that. You know, having the nationwide tax forms, um, is important. Yeah.
Roger Harris: And and besides the forums, you host meetings and, you know, Bill.com and others will come for people who don't think there is back and forth between our community and the IRS, we have open dialog on a month to month basis where Mel always starts the meeting, like, what are you hearing? What are the issues that are out there? Yeah. And it gives us a chance to come in and [00:19:30] talk to the leadership of the IRS about what we see.
Mel Hardy: Yes. And the monthly meeting, um, is really important because, as Roger's indicated, it gives the partners an opportunity to come in here from subject matter experts. Sometimes, Roger, even from the commissioner himself, he'll pop in. Right? Uh, it's it's there at 1111. So, you know, post pandemic, when we were doing all this virtual, uh, folks like my good friend Roger was like, well, Mel, when are we going to get. When we get back? [00:20:00]
Annie Schwab: Yeah. Yeah.
Mel Hardy: And, uh, once we did get back, um, that same energy, that's what's something that you can't really, uh, replicate or duplicate is the energy that's in the room whenever folks come to hear subject matter experts, um, executives, the deputy commissioner, a commissioner on a variety of topics. Um, the hot one recently, uh, Roger was IRC, right? Exactly.
Roger Harris: It's still.
Annie Schwab: It's still never go away. I know we talk about it on our podcast every single [00:20:30] time we try so hard about IRC. Yes.
Mel Hardy: And so, you know, having that forum where external partners can come in. And Roger, you know this, but not when I say external partners. I'm talking about folks from all of the different associations. I'm also talking about folks who are enrolled agents, who are CPAs, uh, attorneys. We have, uh, the American Bar Association, the [00:21:00] American Bankers Association has representatives. Um, so it's a it's a it's a wide variety of folks that do come to the meetings. And one of the reasons why people like Roger kept saying, can we get back? Is because once a month, it's also not only a great way to hear and discuss and engage in an open format. And sometimes it can, it can, it can get a little heated. Right.
Roger Harris: And sometimes the things that happen in the breaks are more valuable, which you don't [00:21:30] get when you're virtual and you just all.
Annie Schwab: The stuff in the hallway. Right?
Mel Hardy: Exactly. And that's where I was headed. It's like the interaction. These folks are able to come together. We have a really significant meeting. It's usually around three hours. Um, you know, very compact. Um, but very I my, um, my staff member, my, actually my branch chief, Paul Farrell, and his staff try to make sure every month that there are good topics, relevant topics, salient [00:22:00] topics that are important to your community. And so, you know, it's, um, and the other beauty of this is that the folks that do attend on a regular basis, we now consider them trusted partners. So whenever there are issues that come up that perhaps is going to be discussed at a later date, but sort of a close hold. The commissioner or or another executive may say, hey, Mel, [00:22:30] can you round up a group of, you know, our trusted partners? So Roger. Others will be on a call. Right. Roger. Right. And you know, when you get a.
Roger Harris: Little advance notice of something or a chance to give some final input to something, and sometimes it helps. But if nothing else, it makes you feel like you're being evaluated.
Annie Schwab: Absolutely. Yeah.
Mel Hardy: One of the things that whenever I took over as the director of National Public Liaison, um, and I began to meet folks [00:23:00] that were coming to the meetings and just kind of organically looking at, how can I make this better? How can I change it? And one of the things that I consistently heard from the attendees, from the tax pros was, you know, we're not hearing things ahead of time and nobody's asking us. And I and Roger, I think you will remember, I sort of equated it to, you know, the IRS, you know, does this almost like. Well, I equated it to when my daughters [00:23:30] were younger, okay. And they would come home with a project, you know, an art project, you know, they use macaroni and they paint it and they would say, well, daddy, isn't it beautiful? And of course, at building esteem and loving my daughter. It's fabulous. It's a Picasso. And he did it on the refrigerator, you know. But later in the evening, you're standing there with your wife and your life. How long do you think we're going to have to leave this?
Annie Schwab: I've been there.
Mel Hardy: So I equated that a lot of times to sometimes not as [00:24:00] bad, but the IRS building things or sort of developing things in a vacuum without talking to partners. And so we kind of changed that in MPL, and the leadership embraced it immediately. So, Roger, you've been in a lot of, um, sort of close hold meetings where there's. Yeah.
Roger Harris: And this commissioner particularly seemed very much in tune with wanting to do that. And as you mentioned, just came from a meeting, you know, with him and he and I were both in there [00:24:30] for, for an hour of him wanting to hear from us, which I think is a begging.
Annie Schwab: Us to share. I mean, asking us, you know, how can what can we change? What are your frustrations? What are you seeing with your with your clients, with your customers? And I mean, really listening to what we had to say, it was very impressive. I was impressed.
Mel Hardy: And to that point, um, a lot of times, I think the leadership doesn't know that the [00:25:00] partners, the trusted stakeholders, the associations have these issues. So what MPL really does is we elevate those issues up. So during the meeting, Roger will say, hey, I'm hearing this, or somebody else will say, I'm hearing this, and I Roger, I always try to get you guys an answer, but yeah, you know, sometimes sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But to your point, earlier, at least they know hey MPL [00:25:30] and Mel they're they're they're elevating this. So keep rattling the cage. Let's talk about the forums.
Roger Harris: There's 4000 people. But if someone's never come to an IRS forum, why should they come to these things? Because what are they five year? Is that pretty standard? Five a.
Mel Hardy: Year.
Annie Schwab: Um, really summer? They usually keep them in the summer it is.
Mel Hardy: In the summer. Um, so the nationwide tax forums is sort of one of the marquee events, uh, of the IRS. And I'm really, truly honored [00:26:00] and humbled to be the director and to be the person that has a team that puts this on. Um, because as you can see, we're here in the exhibit hall, uh, you know, some of the top software and associations are here. Um, so it's an opportunity to not only get your continuing education credits if you're an enrolled agent, an accountant, even an attorney, there's something that you need. You get your, um, your CE credits. Continuing education credits. You [00:26:30] also have the opportunity to network, um, at, you know, each year, my staff and I, we try to add another dimension to it that makes it even better. So now, uh, shameless plug here. Roger, what do we have going on on Monday evenings?
Roger Harris: We now have a practice management panel. And what.
Mel Hardy: Is that?
Roger Harris: That is something beyond, you know, come to this primarily to learn tax law or regulations. And yet we all recognize being in this business is more than that. [00:27:00] And so we went to Mel and said, we think we need to give people that type of education. And his group allowed us to put together. And the room was packed.
Annie Schwab: Yeah, it was packed. There's a lot of people in there.
Mel Hardy: Well, on a Monday night.
Roger Harris: When really?
Mel Hardy: Nothing else on a Monday night? Uh, no continuing education credits. That's right. Monday is always kind of hectic because that's when everybody's coming and registering. Arriving and getting into the hotel and getting registered with the building looks like where the buildings are.
Annie Schwab: Yeah, it's [00:27:30] a big place.
Mel Hardy: But to your credit and your colleagues, you know, it was like, can we try this? And I'm the type of leader where if my partners, my stakeholders come to me with something that's plausible, let's try it. What's the worst that can happen? Four people show up at all five cities, and then. Well, we just we don't do it anymore. But I can tell you from the very first time that we did this in New Orleans, when there was no advertisement, [00:28:00] Roger was running around. I was running around. I got my someone. Hey, hey, hey, how you doing? Do you know there's something going on at 5:00? And even in New Orleans, we had a great we had a good turnout. But last night I had the scanners, the scanners. For those who have never been to the forms, when you come here, it's very high tech. Our our partner, our contractors. Make sure that everybody has a badge and they can get scanned in and get their C credits. Well, there was no credit for last night, but I did have [00:28:30] my contractors scan everyone. Right? Uh, there were over 200 people. Yeah, there were over 200 people last night.
Annie Schwab: Yeah, I agree. It looked it looked packed. Almost every seat was taken.
Roger Harris: And we we had 90 minutes. I think we could have run longer.
Annie Schwab: Oh, yeah. We had questions that we were scrambling to answer right at the end. We probably could have gone on.
Roger Harris: So there's a lot of and for the forum, they're relatively inexpensive. Yes. The amount of CPD you get when you register.
Annie Schwab: And with city. Yeah, some [00:29:00] of the cities it's a little more expensive to stay.
Mel Hardy: And I'm glad you said cities but so we are in five cities normally and it's across the country. It is. And we do that primarily because we know that people are kind of regionally located. So we always have one on the West Coast at San Diego. Mhm. That's for people in Nevada and California and all that. Uh, we're here in Texas, here in Dallas, Texas. It's kind of southwest. Central. So we're getting a lot of folks. Last week we were in Baltimore [00:29:30] and we got a ton of people from the East Coast, New York, new Jersey, Delaware, all the way down to Virginia. So that's why we space it out. And it really it really, really works. But it's, um, it's a it's it's a it's a lot of work. It's hard work. But myself and my staff and even my contractors, we truly enjoy it. It's it's a it's a true labor.
Annie Schwab: You work hard because it's.
Roger Harris: Just between the three of us. Where are we going to be next year?
Mel Hardy: Uh, we [00:30:00] haven't got that clear from Treasury yet, Roger. And as soon as I do, you'll be the first to know.
Roger Harris: You I.
Roger Harris: Know.
Roger Harris: There's some places you seem to always go. And then there's. They make some in. And look, I know it's a lot harder than it seems.
Mel Hardy: It is.
Roger Harris: To find coordination facility, a date, convention space, everything to put them on.
Mel Hardy: And the challenge for us and our contractors who actually help us get the space in the hotel and all that. The [00:30:30] the challenge there is, we don't always come to the top of the list, as you know. So if they've got, you know, Comic-Con, right, you know, versus the nationwide transforms, they're not going to do it. But you know, Roger, I would strongly encourage folks to look at the IRS website whenever we put up the cities for the for the forums, usually sometime early in the spring on Irs.gov. And I really encourage people that have never [00:31:00] been to the forums to come, because not only are you going to get your continuing education credits, you're going to be able to attend special practice. Uh, I mean, special programs like Rogers Practice Management. Also, we have a case resolution room. You can bring your toughest cases. Right, Roger? Yeah.
Roger Harris: Bring your toughest case in there. Have an appointment and sit down there and solve it.
Annie Schwab: On the spot. No waiting on the phone.
Mel Hardy: No waiting on the phones. Yeah. And so there's a there's a I could go on and on about the benefits of it, but I will just say it's [00:31:30] a worthwhile event to come to. I agree, if you're in I'm.
Annie Schwab: Having a blast.
Mel Hardy: And you can't wait.
Annie Schwab: Because yeah, they fill up.
Roger Harris: This year. Right.
Mel Hardy: They're all sold out.
Roger Harris: Yeah. So don't wait. There is a there is a limit. Yeah. Well we can have you here an hour so we'll have to get you back. All right. Thank you for doing this.
Mel Hardy: Thank you so much as always, my friend.
Roger Harris: It's a it's a real pleasure. And thank you for doing this. Thank you for putting on these forums. Great. You're welcome. Um. Love it.
Mel Hardy: And thank you for all what you do. I mean, just being very, very supportive [00:32:00] of not only the IRS but the forums and that's that's important. Well.
Annie Schwab: Happy to do it.
Roger Harris: We're happy to do. It.
Roger Harris: All right, everybody, we're back. We have another guest here in Dallas joining Annie and I, Chris Fraley. Welcome. Thank you. Chris is representing NSA. Yes. As a practice is on our SAC. It's going to be a chair of our SAC next year. We got a lot to talk about.
Annie Schwab: Welcome. [00:32:30] Thank you so much for joining us today. Taking some time out I know it's super busy. There's people everywhere stuff going on, activities, giveaways, all kinds of stuff. So thank you for taking time out of your day. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Christine Freeland: Um, I'm a certified public accountant.Um, in Chandler, Arizona, in the sunny heat weather. Um, I have a small practice. I'm the only practitioner, and the rest of my staff is just in administrative data entry kinds [00:33:00] of things. Fans, but we still cover a lot of returns. Um, probably 4 to 500 returns every. Every year.
Roger Harris: Yeah, that'll keep you busy.
Christine Freeland: Yeah, it does keep us. It does keep us busy. Um, my husband works with me. Um, as one of our friends, Nina Trost would say he's my gatekeeper. Um, he. If you you don't get to me without going through him. And if he doesn't think you should get to me, you don't. And so it's kind of nice. One of my clients called him the soup Nazi. So, [00:33:30] yeah.
Roger Harris: We all knew what gatekeepers I was about.
Annie Schwab: To say. Does that work with kids? Can I get one of those to keep my kids from coming in?
Christine Freeland: It it would be. It is wonderful because there was a time when I didn't have that. I was just by myself all the time, and just anybody that showed up in the door just walked right, right in. And you can get a lot more work done when you're not getting interrupted every five minutes by somebody. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Well, how do you find time with all of that to come here? You represent NASA. I mean, you're going to be part of that and talk about her because [00:34:00] we have a common Amanda who works with us and talk for people who don't know her. Talk about what that is.
Christine Freeland: Okay, so RSK is the IRS Advisory council to the commissioner. Um, it's made up of people from tax professionals to information reporting, state governments. And it's a three year term that that you serve and you're assigned to a subcommittee. And, um, it's it's an opportunity. As for me, as a practitioner, [00:34:30] it's an opportunity for me to give back, um, this this industry has served me well, um, financially supported our family. And so this was, you know, my opportunity to to participate in that and be able to give back. Um, it's definitely a time commitment. Unfortunately, my kids are grown and gone. Even my grandkids, my youngest grandkids are 12. Um, and so, you know, no little kids to worry about. And so that time that was filled by that was now filled by [00:35:00] other things.
Roger Harris: And you get to meet you. I know when I was on earth, I always said I got to see the other side of the business.
Christine Freeland: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, I know the practitioner side pretty well. I've been involved with NSA. I've done, um, I don't know. I've been at IRS forums for probably ten, 12 years at least. Um, but seeing some of the other side, realizing what information reporting goes through, I mean, I send out a 1099, I think nothing of it. I don't [00:35:30] think about the other side of who created that and what the hoops they go through in order to make that, that happen. So it's been a really enlightening, um, kind kind of process. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Next year you get to share it. And that's.
Christine Freeland: Yeah, that's the plan. You know, unless I can convince the current chair to stay on another year. Yeah, yeah.
Annie Schwab: Yeah. So what do you love about the forums? What do you enjoy while you're here?
Christine Freeland: So from from an NSA perspective, what I really like is getting to meet our members. Um, [00:36:00] I interact with a lot of our members. We have a program called Tax Talk. It's a listserv online. And you and you get to know people that way, but to actually meet them in person, put that face with the name. Um, and I think it's also eye opening to, um, find out who, what kind of practices other people have. You know, sometimes we get in our own little world and our own little bubble and think everybody has a practice like I do. And that's really not the case. I mean, [00:36:30] there's a, you know, there's a wide variety from from a sole practitioner to people that have, you know, 8 or 10, um, practitioners that finding out what the struggles people are having are, um, hiring and keeping up with tax law and those kinds of things. So it's a lot of fun. And you get to see people you haven't seen for a year. Yeah. Um, and like a reunion, it is. It's kind of like the reunion tour. And so, And for me, I also get to meet the NSA staff as the staff has changed. It's always an opportunity to to get to [00:37:00] know them and to.
Roger Harris: For people who don't know NSA, talk a little bit about the organization and why they're here at the forum. I know they have a booth. Yep.
Christine Freeland: So we do. We're actually the National Society of Accountants. And, you know, it's interesting. The biggest struggle we have is truthfully, we're the we're the oldest of all the professional associations. We're older than the others. But we struggle with some name identity because people walk up to the booth and say, oh, I'm not an accountant. Well, I'm hoping that you at least think you're [00:37:30] a little bit of an accountant. If you're doing business tax returns, you know it needs a balance sheet. Um, it needs more than just a list of what. Here's what I spent this year. But as I tell people, we go back to the day when NSA was formed, I said, you wouldn't have been called a tax professional. You wouldn't have been called a tax preparer. You wouldn't have been called a tax accountant. Everything in the field fell under that accountant was the umbrella at the time. And over time, as we added ease into [00:38:00] the mix because we go back prior to the enrollment, the enrolled agents testing. And so there were no other designations. But as those things came along and we added enrolled agents as a test and a credential that you could get, and then, um, you know, then practitioners don't have to be licensed, don't have to have any credential. It kind of took on going from being an accountant to, you know, now we're now we're often referred to as commissioner did today [00:38:30] as those tax pros. And so people just so we kind of struggle with that as an accountant. But we've been around we have tons of information for for accountants. We have a lot of free resources. We we kind of fill that void of we take everybody. Whether you're an EA as a CPA.
Annie Schwab: How do you become a member.
Christine Freeland: Um, a bookkeeper. Um, there's no specific credential that you have to have to become a member. And we try and, you know, help each other, um, as [00:39:00] best we can. Um, we really are about giving, um, tax professionals and accountants the resources that they're looking for. It's fantastic.
Roger Harris: I hate to tell you how long ago I joined. I think it was NSC. What? What was it? Nsc Public Accountants, NFPA.
Christine Freeland: Nfpa was the original and it still is the legal name, National Society of Public Accountants, because it was founded as a counterpart to for people that weren't joining, weren't eligible or didn't want to join the AICPA. [00:39:30] Got it. So so, yeah. So Roger holds the record for NSA, kept track of for a really long time when you recruited members. We ended up with his ten plus club. And so Roger, to this day still has recruited more members than anybody else. And there were a couple people that tried to beat that record. I am well into the ten plus club, but I was never I mean, I couldn't live long enough to catch up with Roger.
Annie Schwab: Oh, I did not know that about you.
Roger Harris: I [00:40:00] didn't know I still had the record.
Annie Schwab: You still have the record?
Christine Freeland: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Roger Harris: So they're here against the, as you said, to kind of socialize with members and to seek new members.
Christine Freeland: Exactly. Yes. Um, we always bring in a lot of new members because we have some benefits that are unique to us. And we and again, and to see our existing members, because it is good for the staff to really meet people, find out who our real members are. Um, [00:40:30] it's not an opportunity, especially in our virtual world. Um, it's not like we're all holding big live events where we get to meet all of our membership. So, um, it is it is really nice for that purpose. Yeah.
Annie Schwab: Well, tell our audience if they're interested in finding out more or joining, where would they go? Okay, so.
Christine Freeland: Our booth is up against the wall here at the forums, but once we're online at nsw-act dot org. Okay. Um, if you put in IRS 50 [00:41:00] in the code, we'll give you $50 off your membership. There you go. But don't tell anybody. I told everybody in the world that nobody.
Roger Harris: Listens to this podcast.
Christine Freeland: So, um, and and you can join up if you're having issues. We have staff that can help. Um, our membership director is here at the forum, but he's available all the time. John Overington. And, um, our staff is really, you know, really great. You know, we're all virtual, just like everybody [00:41:30] else. So sometimes it takes a day or so for everybody to get connected, but they're more than willing to help, and so are the members. I mean, our tax talk group is a good is a good community of people, um, bailing each other out a lot.
Roger Harris: Well, I know you just sat in a meeting. Annie and I were in with the IRS commissioner. So, yes. From your perspective as NSA, your own practice per sack, where does our industry sit right now? What's what? What are some of the challenges that we're facing from here? [00:42:00]
Christine Freeland: So one of the challenges I think that's always ongoing is changing tax law. When I started taxes many, many years ago, I'm not telling you how many. And so, um, tax law didn't change like it does now. I mean, there was a time when, you know, you didn't go you didn't necessarily have tax law change every single year. That's a fairly, you know, um, it's a much newer, um, concept concept idea than what what we had in the, in the [00:42:30] days of days of days gone by. And so keeping up with changing tax law, um, can be tough. Um, I will say one of my frustrations with the industry is as I come to events like this, and I come and I attend some other state sponsored kinds of things, and people say, oh yeah, I came because this gets me all the CPE I need for a year. But the problem is, is in August, you don't know if you've gotten all the CPE you need because you don't know what's going to happen between now and year [00:43:00] end. Um.
Annie Schwab: It could definitely be something special.
Christine Freeland: We're in an election year. You know, the lame duck and who knows, do who, you know. And next.
Roger Harris: Year, we got the whole tax bill expiring, and.
Christine Freeland: The tax cut Jobs Act goes away. We will have to relearn so many things. Because even if even if we don't go back to it in its entirety, there's going to be some change. We're either going to revert all the way back or we're going to pass something new, but it won't stay what we've got right now. It just [00:43:30] it won't it never it never does. And so here we are, you know. So getting enough CPE, getting the right CPE. Um, making sure you're hearing from, you know, an appropriate, um, instructor from a group. So, you know, going to such a group as NSA or even our competitors. Natpe nstp na, um, making sure you're getting quality. Too often, I hear people say, oh, [00:44:00] I want to study. I'm going to do online what's, you know, tell me what an expensive CPE you bought. Well, an expensive CPE is not necessarily the answer to your solution. In fact, it's probably the beginning of your downfall. So so that is a big thing. And of course, right now the and the URC, um, dealing with clients that are dealing with that and having to figure out how to clean up their mess, um, if they took it and they shouldn't have. I didn't do any claims myself, but I have clients [00:44:30] that that did. And now I'm having to go back and figure out where are they really entitled. And you just you can't um, and and then being frustrated with the client who did it without even asking you. You know, we're.
Annie Schwab: Asking for help or talking to you.
Christine Freeland: Or saying, is this so? Is this okay? Yeah. So frustration level there.
Annie Schwab: I think your frustrations probably ring loudly with a lot of tax practitioners. Oh, I hear the same. You know we hear staffing pricing tax law technology [00:45:00] CRC.
Christine Freeland: Yeah. Technology. You know, the announcement about multifactor authentication came out from IRS this past week. And I know our NSA tax talk was like, what? How are we supposed to do this? And I'm like, oh, I can't believe you don't have tax software that already has that. That's the shocking part. You know.
Roger Harris: It shouldn't be something.
Christine Freeland: You. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's kind of like okay. Is that, you know, I was at a different CPA event recently, and in the ladies room, a lady is in there kind of muttering to herself as she's washing [00:45:30] her hands, saying, I hate technology. And I looked at her and said, I think you're in the wrong business then. Yeah. Because if you don't want to stay current on technology, you need to not be in this business. It's too dangerous. You don't want.
Roger Harris: To go back to being in my head.
Christine Freeland: We do not. I never did them by hand.
Annie Schwab: And I don't ever plan to.
Christine Freeland: I didn't either, and I don't plan to. I think I did my grandmother's one year when I was still just a kid, um, by hand. And. And it is not, I don't know, we couldn't get hardly any returns [00:46:00] done if we had to do them by hand. As complicated as things are now.
Roger Harris: Well, I have to.
Roger Harris: Show my debut on my hand. And I.
Christine Freeland: Came close.
Roger Harris: I raced through a lot of sheets of paper tax forms.
Christine Freeland: Early on in my career. I did, um, like friends and family returns on an old dot matrix printer where you then you had to take and put an overlay over top of the front two pages and copy it so that the foil would actually create the form, [00:46:30] because the printer couldn't create the form because it only could do dots.
Annie Schwab: Yeah.
Christine Freeland: Okay, so I am at least that old.
Roger Harris: Well, Chris, thank you for doing this. You're welcome. This is kind of like when we get to we see each other virtually a lot. Yes. This is a way, like you said, a reunion.
Christine Freeland: It is.
Christine Freeland: It's a lot of fun to see everybody in person and meet new people.
Annie Schwab: Yes, yes.
Christine Freeland: Well, thanks a lot. Thank you.
Roger Harris: Congratulations. Good luck. Thank you. And thank you for doing this. You're welcome.
Annie Schwab: Enjoy the rest of the form. Thank you. [00:47:00]
Roger Harris: All right. Welcome back everybody. We have our next guest, Kelly Comegys from Nike. Welcome.
Kelly Comegys: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Annie Schwab: To have you here.
Kelly Comegys: Today. Thanks so much.
Roger Harris: Start off by telling you a little bit about yourself and Nike. Sure.
Kelly Comegys: So I am the senior Director of Membership and Strategy at Nike, and we are the National Association of Enrolled Agents. Um, we are the only association [00:47:30] specifically dedicated to enrolled agents and advocacy for enrolled agents. That's one of our huge focuses, and one of our biggest parts of our mission is advocating for the profession.
Annie Schwab: Okay.
Roger Harris: And you're Neha is here both in the exhibit hall, trying to help recruit members. Yes. You're also supplying a lot of speakers for our sessions here.
Kelly Comegys: Yes.
Kelly Comegys: We partner with the IRS to provide speakers for the education that all of the forums. And we also have a presence here in a booth. This [00:48:00] is one of the, um, one of multiple times throughout the year where we really get to meet our members in person, which is always nice, and so many things are done virtually. This is when we really get to see people out and about. We go to all of the forums and we have our speakers come to all of the forums. Um, it's also a really great place to spread awareness of the credential, um, and promote our education foundation arm of Neha, [00:48:30] which has a lot of scholarships for aspiring enrolled agents.
Kelly Comegys: That's for you.
Roger Harris: Every organization we've interviewed has said the same thing about what one of the big benefits of being here is getting to see members in person.
Kelly Comegys: Yes, yes. I guess.
Roger Harris: It's probably the only time it.
Roger Harris: Really organizations.
Kelly Comegys: It really is. There are a few times now throughout the year where we get to see this many members on such a large scale.
Annie Schwab: I'm sure during Covid you didn't see anybody. So it was like a lovely.
Kelly Comegys: Yes.
Annie Schwab: And sort of the. Yes. [00:49:00]
Kelly Comegys: So this has been so nice to reconnect with members, to talk to potential members, to answer any questions on site. I mean, we are at the booth with our laptops. They're ready to fix any issues, answer questions, you know, talk about anything in someone's education portal that they're having trouble with. So, you know, it really runs the gamut of of the kind of interaction we can have with members and potential members.
Annie Schwab: We said earlier today that all [00:49:30] the forms are sold out. This one has 4000 people here. Yeah. So I'm sure your booth. Our booth is busy. There's so much activity going on. Yeah. How do you keep it all together and. And what's sort of like. Well.
Kelly Comegys: We have a really great, small but mighty team behind the scenes working to make all this happen. And there's just so much energy and excitement at all of the forums that it just really provides for a fun atmosphere. And it's why we do what we do [00:50:00] to see the members.
Roger Harris: So talk to to our listeners.
Roger Harris: Why? First of all, do you have to be in the A to be a member and why should you join any?
Kelly Comegys: So you do not have to be an enrolled agent to become a member. You can join as an associate. You can also join as an academic associate, which is a category for students and instructors. Okay. Um, one of the I'll argue, one of the biggest reasons to join is for the community. You're going to have a cohort of other professionals [00:50:30] to bounce ideas off of and ask questions. Get questions answered. It's really that community. It also helps, too, that we provide a minimum of 40 free C credit hours a year. So that really helps on renewing your license during every renewal period. Um, and then all of the advocacy that we're doing at both the federal and the state level is really.
Annie Schwab: Like your big task or big idea that you're working on right now. [00:51:00]
Kelly Comegys: So the biggest thing right now is a national minimum standard for tax preparers. We're working with the IRS and the national and the National Taxpayer Advocate Service, um, to help make this come about. It's a long overdue piece of legislation that needs to happen, and it really is a win win for everyone. It's, um, you know, takes less time and money if we have standards for tax preparers, [00:51:30] for both the tax professional. The taxpayer and the IRS and tax payers want to be able to trust. Who they're hiring and know that there is a standard, a professional standard that their tax preparers adhering to and is accountable for.
Roger Harris: I think a lot of people, taxpayers probably assume we all are at some consistent level. I think they'd be [00:52:00] shocked to realize that you can just show up with a computer and.
Roger Harris: Be a tax.
Kelly Comegys: Yes, absolutely. Well, currently there are more, um, there are more restrictions to become, um, a beautician or a barber than there are right now for a tax preparer.
Annie Schwab: Other professional services have minimum standards requirements that you have to meet. Education you have to complete. Yes. You know and so Yeah, I'm all for it. Yeah, absolutely. You might be.
Roger Harris: Able to survive a bad haircut, but you [00:52:30] probably can't survive.
Roger Harris: A bad time.
Annie Schwab: It's, you know, the 1 or 2 bad characters that kind of just make it hard for good ones, you know?
Roger Harris: Yeah. Is it harder on the good ones? Yeah.
Kelly Comegys: And having those standards in place just inherently leads to more ethical practices among the profession. And then that trust that's going to come along to, to pass it on to the taxpayer.
Roger Harris: Because sometimes it makes it hard on those of us that are trying to do things right. When the taxpayer knows they can drive down the street [00:53:00] two blocks and get what they want.
Kelly Comegys: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Roger Harris: And the system needs good preparers because we're part of the, I hate to say, policing, but we are part of the policing of the system.
Kelly Comegys: Yeah.
Roger Harris: Because it's impossible.
Kelly Comegys: Yeah.
Kelly Comegys: Without the help. It is a joint effort. And for this to happen, it really I mean, it it we have been working with the IRS and and other, um, interest. I don't know how to [00:53:30] say this. Yes. Organizations like the Taxpayer Advocate Service, um, to make this come about. And the IRS is definitely in support of this, but it is going to be, you know, all hands on deck. This is a group effort to get this passed.
Roger Harris: Yeah, I.
Roger Harris: Think most of the organizations support it. The devil is always in some of the details. Yes. And then getting Congress to do something as always.
Kelly Comegys: Absolutely. And I mean, as you know, something that doesn't happen overnight. So it definitely is a work in progress.
Annie Schwab: Well, I [00:54:00] support your mission here. And anything that we can do to further.
Roger Harris: And I know we have worked with NEA on this project. Yeah.
Roger Harris: To try to.
Roger Harris: Push the.
Annie Schwab: Minimum standards. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Down the track here to get something done.
Kelly Comegys: We can definitely continue to use your support in making this happen.
Roger Harris: Something is better than nothing.
Annie Schwab: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Roger Harris: Let's don't let the enemy of good be perfect. In this case, let's get started and then.
Annie Schwab: We can tweak it. Right? Right, right.
Roger Harris: Any last words [00:54:30] to our listeners about Nokia?
Kelly Comegys: Well, thanks.
Kelly Comegys: So much for for having us. Thank you. Um, please feel free to come see us at the booth throughout the forums. Um, and our annual conference will be in Salt Lake City, Utah next year. So something new for us.
Roger Harris: And if they can't come and see you in person, I'm sure you got a website they can go to.
Kelly Comegys: We do.
Kelly Comegys: So naive. Org is our website and we have a ton of virtual opportunities as well. Okay.
Annie Schwab: Fantastic. Thank you so much [00:55:00] for joining us. Thanks for having.
Kelly Comegys: Me.
Kelly Comegys: Same to you.
Roger Harris: Say hello to.
Roger Harris: All the friends over there.
Kelly Comegys: I will.
Kelly Comegys: Thank you very much.
Roger Harris: Thank you. Thank you.
Roger Harris: All right. We're back in Dallas. Annie and I are joined by another guest today, good friend, Ellen Pink. How you doing?
Alan Pinck: Doing fantastic. Getting better over time.
Roger Harris: Thank you for being here.
Alan Pinck: And thanks for having me.
Roger Harris: Well let's start. I tell everybody that he's famous from TikTok [00:55:30] today, but let's assume somebody.
Annie Schwab: Well, I was wondering why he was dressed so nicely. I mean, I'm kind of feeling underdressed these days, but.
Alan Pinck: Well, you know, that's that's kind of my my motif.
Annie Schwab: Aha.
Alan Pinck: Okay. Kind of assume.
Roger Harris: That somebody doesn't know yet. Tell us a little bit about your practice and where you're from. And that's what.
Alan Pinck: I've got to practice in the San Francisco Bay area for the last 30 some years. And I've stopped counting after a while, just to remind myself that I've been doing this for a while. And I specialize in small business and modern [00:56:00] representation. I like that. Yeah, it gives me a lot. It gives me a lot of good stories for the Sage. Yes, I do a fair amount of speaking as well, but one of the things that I also do is I moderate tax talk today. And for those that don't know, that's the tax show for tax pros. It's been around for almost 25 years ago, the longest running podcast of any nature in the world.
Annie Schwab: Fantastic.
Alan Pinck: It was originally owned by the IRS. The IRS decided they didn't want to do it anymore. It went to a private company, and [00:56:30] now it is sponsored by the IRS and the National Association of Governments. So it's a roundtable discussion. We do seven shows a year, and it's the IRS and tax pros have a conversation on various topics. Our next show will be on September 17th and once again September 17th sometime. Yes, we're talking about Secure act 2.0. Okay. So it'll be a good show. Looking forward to that one. And don't forget if you don't have your ethics November I'm going to have Sharon Frisk on the show. Okay.
Annie Schwab: Nice [00:57:00] to know. Yes I feel like you've come December and everybody's scrambling to get their ethics in for the year, so that's good to know. Save the date on November. Got it.
Alan Pinck: Definitely want to do that.
Roger Harris: How'd you get the job as moderator?
Alan Pinck: It's kind of a funny story.
Annie Schwab: Oh, no.
Alan Pinck: The original moderator that was there when I was a kid for a handful of times was retiring. Actually, the show was sold and Lisbeth was on the show when she was when les was retiring, she reached out to me and she said, [00:57:30] send me an email, says Ellen. You know, les wants to retire. Do you know anybody that would take over for him? And I said, well, do you think you and I can have a conversation? We set up a conversation the next couple of days later, she says. I said, would you consider me? And she said, that's why I reached out. I was kind of.
Alan Pinck: Hoping.
Annie Schwab: You would volunteer, right.
Alan Pinck: And next thing I know, here I am, and we've been doing it for now. Six years. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Yeah, you're doing it. When I did it and when you were a panelist, it was like I was doing [00:58:00] a TV show. You went into a studio and they did the makeup? No, the whole thing. Now it's all virtual at this point.
Alan Pinck: It's all virtual. It's. You know. The pandemic changed our world. Right. And it's all part of it. We are talking. Hopefully we'll get back into the studio in the next year or so. Maybe not the full blown setup, but it has been painless to kind of do it more like a newscast where I bring people in virtually. Yeah, but that's real. Touching up a little bit more, bring it back to what it what the show is more about initially.
Roger Harris: Because I had to [00:58:30] add significant cost because you had people having to come in. Right. Got to run the studio. I mean, you literally had three and four cameras in there, and.
Alan Pinck: That's where the expense is. I mean, it's yeah, you think about you've got a director, you've got all the shots, so that doesn't count. We got the director, we had one gal. Her job was a teleprompter, just so that I would stay straight when I was supposed to talk about. Not my questions, just everything else. Uh, you know, you had the makeup person. You had the 3 or 4 cameras. It was. It was a real big production.
Annie Schwab: Right, right. [00:59:00]
Alan Pinck: Setting up the studio for the day for two days. It was a big deal. Not often do you pick the topics.
Roger Harris: And finally. Or is that.
Alan Pinck: You know, this is an interesting we we get to the topics that we have picked by the panel. Our story by our guest.
Annie Schwab: Okay.
Alan Pinck: Now our guest. I shouldn't say that. More about our viewers. We ask our viewers to give us the most likely because we know what we'd like to hear. The IRS puts their $0.02 in and puts their $0.02 in. And then [00:59:30] from there we pick the top. So we take a list of topics we do. A matter of fact we're picking Chicago now. We listed we have we're always going to have three shows that are fixed. Our January show is going to be an update. It'll be a three hour show.
Annie Schwab: Oh, gotcha.
Alan Pinck: We do in our base show. Yeah. Our main show will be representation. So this year we did a show on XM on a collective group. It was a classic Thanksgiving on XM. Got it. And then our, um, November show is [01:00:00] ethics. And what's nice about the ethics show is the IRS gives a percentage to all shows.
Annie Schwab: That's nice.
Alan Pinck: So they'll pick their presenters. They have their presenters decided on what's going on idea for ethics will generally get over. We are. So. Sharon's been on the show in the past, when Sharon was doing a separate a little special project for the last couple of years, we had her acting assistant in there doing the show. It was great to have him on. So we're getting from the horse's name. I mean, that relationship.
Roger Harris: With the IRS [01:00:30] gives you a real advantage that you can bring in, not just the practitioner, but the.
Annie Schwab: Yeah, the other.
Annie Schwab: And you have it scheduled so that it's consistent. It's the audience knows, I'm sure all your listeners and followers is probably keeps growing every single year. Oh yeah. You know, the number of listeners and.
Alan Pinck: And we're, we're always asking for and we want people to participate. We're doing other things too. We're using our forum as a we call five Things to know about the paywall. It's also on [01:01:00] a YouTube page that is the IRS. Matter of fact, the forums that John and, um. Patricia. Patricia young. Thank you. John and Patricia Young with the five things to know. And the IRS is using that to promote the cause of Grace. And the Chicago cop who owns the show's executive producer. He came out and we did video interviews of vendors as well as, uh, participants, speakers [01:01:30] and that were also used to promote the forums and right on the National Forum website. That's very similar to our YouTube channel. We actually launched our YouTube channel last year with the same concept of taking the forum interviews. And that's why.
Annie Schwab: Well, all the forums are sold out, so it must be, you.
Alan Pinck: Know, a little bit.
Alan Pinck: Hey, we just want it to work for everybody. It's a great partnership to have.
Roger Harris: And you're passionate.
Roger Harris: About teaching because [01:02:00] you TikTok today you're teaching here for Phoenix. Yes, you teach for Naia. You have any time to run your business.
Alan Pinck: Well, you know, in between, I do a lot on the plane.
Annie Schwab: On the plane? Oh, man.
Alan Pinck: I do a lot on the plane. Yeah, I do that. But, you know, as a matter of fact, you know, I go home tomorrow. Yeah. And then I've got a lot of coming on Thursday in my office. Yeah, I've got a handful of appointments and I'm not going to talk to anybody by the end of the day. Yeah, it's all good. It's all.
Roger Harris: Good. And he does all this with the perfect work life balance. [01:02:30] I've heard him tell this story before. What is your daily routine? Well, Sam, you go home and what do you do?
Alan Pinck: Well, like, I leave the office going in at 430.
Annie Schwab: 430. Okay, 30.
Alan Pinck: I go home, my wife and I take her to walk.
Annie Schwab: Oh. How nice. You must not live in Texas. No, we.
Alan Pinck: Don't live in Texas.
Alan Pinck: We live in a nice park. As a matter of fact, we were in, uh, we're in Georgia this past weekend, and it was nice. Yeah. I mean, it was only 87 degrees in 110% humidity without [01:03:00] rain. Yeah, yeah.
Annie Schwab: Yeah.
Alan Pinck: So you walk outside and you're drenched. Yep. It was 77 degrees.
Annie Schwab: Beautiful.
Alan Pinck: So we do. We're very blessed that way. If we walk around, we take our walk through our neighborhood. We relax. We have one more team. We talk about our day. We didn't finish, finish up the conversation with the law. And then we find out.
Annie Schwab: Who does the cooking. Be honest.
Alan Pinck: We sure okay. I do a lot of cooking. Do you? All right. I do a lot of things that to me.
Roger Harris: Sounds like the perfect signal that you've made [01:03:30] it in this profession.
Annie Schwab: Yes.
Roger Harris: You can leave at 430. Walk, have a martini and then.
Alan Pinck: Go during tax season. I will work this past tax season. I work half a day, Fridays.
Annie Schwab: That's fantastic.
Alan Pinck: I don't work on Fridays. I don't I don't need to work. I like to have a life. Yeah. I think it's anybody can do it.
Annie Schwab: You have to set your goals and set your limitations and stick to it.
Alan Pinck: But most importantly, you [01:04:00] have to charge for your service.
Annie Schwab: Oh, yeah. There you go. Back to pricing. We could name the five things that we knew we were going to talk about IRC. We knew we were going to talk about pricing on this podcast. We knew we were talking about, you know, the forums and everything else that goes into it, but it just sounds like the perfect setup for life.
Alan Pinck: If you don't enjoy it, then why do it? All right, last question.
Roger Harris: From your perspective, you were just in a meeting with the commissioner and things. But just as you look at our profession and where we [01:04:30] are, what do you see the the biggest challenge that we're all facing?
Alan Pinck: I think the biggest challenge we're all facing now, curiously, is the fact that we're not valuing our shares. And I really do when I talk to people. And one of the key things I get is I and I remember doing this, I think I did this last year, I remember what city was at the at the conference, and I asked who is just a CPA [01:05:00] and people raise their hand.
Nina Tross: Him.
Alan Pinck: He's just a tax preparer. You're raising him? He's just a dealer. He never went through this. And everybody's looking at me like he's on his own. And I said, first thing is take just out of the equation what you take just out of the equation. And your fees just went up. Yeah. Because you're belittling yourself. You're not giving yourself the body you deserve.
Roger Harris: Yeah. I think and you've heard me say this. I think our clients value us more. [01:05:30] Sometimes than we do. And that's just money, really. And they appreciate what we do. Sometimes I don't even.
Alan Pinck: Know if taxes were easy. Everybody could do it. Exactly. But we'll get to the point. But we have an 850,000 word tax code. Yeah. You know anybody that says they know it?
Nina Tross: All they might.
Annie Schwab: Need a good research tool.
Alan Pinck: I'm not going to happen to learn it.
Roger Harris: Thank you man. Thank you. Appreciate the.
Alan Pinck: Time. Thanks for having me. Great to.
Alan Pinck: Have you. Nice to see you.
Annie Schwab: Thank [01:06:00] you so much for doing it.
Roger Harris: Keep up the good work.
Roger Harris: All right. You need our back. Nina Truss from STV is here. Nina, welcome.
Nina Tross: Thank you, Roger.
Nina Tross: And thank you, Annie. You are.
Annie Schwab: Very welcome. It's a pleasure to have you taking.
Roger Harris: Some time to spend some time with us. Nina and I spent some time in D.C..
Nina Tross: Lots of years ago.
Roger Harris: Lots of years ago. But talk a little bit, first of all, about your your background, your practice, what you're doing now.
Nina Tross: Okay. [01:06:30] Um, I'm. I've had a practice since a long time. Uh, 25 years. My practice was mostly small business. Uh, my late husband was in construction, and I somehow hooked on to the construction industry. And I had the greatest guys. The greatest. I loved them, I do miss them. They were the greatest people to work with. And so I had my practice for many years. And then I sold it because I decided I would rather teach than have a tax practice.
Nina Tross: Oh, yeah.
Nina Tross: Because I had come [01:07:00] to a crossroads. I was teaching part time and I had my full time practice, and one night I am listening to one of my clients scream at me because of something my office manager had done. And I thought, you know, Nina, this is you got to make a choice. Do you want to teach or do you want to have a tax practice because both is not working. It's not working. And that's when I made the decision that I'd rather teach. So I sold my practice. I went more teaching opportunities with the National Society of [01:07:30] Tax Professionals. I was elected to their board at that point in time, and then the executive director resigned. I put in my name for the executive director's position, and I got it, got it. So I was the executive director for the National Society of Tax Professionals for about eight years. Um, still working, still doing a small practice. You know, I just have about 70 returns. I do now, I. Am out with that. That happened to, [01:08:00] uh, because I was in Arizona for many years while my mom was getting older.
Nina Tross: And I thought, you know, I want to be able to spend more time with her while she was around. So she's in Florida. So I moved to Florida. And so I'm there right now in the Tampa Bay area. I have to tell you, I miss Arizona terribly and I am looking to go back. But, you know, my mom's going to be 90in November, and I'm thrilled to have the time with her. So about two years [01:08:30] ago, I retired, happily retired as the executive director of Nscb. But I still teach and I write, and I'm the liaison with the Internal Revenue Service and other associated organizations. So as part of the work that I do for Nstp is keeping track of what's happening with the IRS, with legislation, what Congress is doing. You know, I'm listening to some of the tax proposals that are current candidate for president are doing. And I sit [01:09:00] there and I'm going, okay, seriously, I understand you're trying to get votes, but as a tax person, I can tell you that this is really poor fiscal policy.
Roger Harris: And that's what gets us in a lot of mess like the IRC. Yeah, look at all the things about it that never work. But if they make good politics, well.
Nina Tross: Well, with the IRC, at.
Roger Harris: Least it gave me.
Nina Tross: And I think that they had the best intentions. I think they had the best of intentions. They were trying to [01:09:30] support the small business community. They had the pptp loans, they had the Eidl loans from the SBA. They had, you know, then they had the, you know, the Employee Retention Act. And all of this was designed to keep businesses active. You know, Trump did the 100% on meals for the two years so that they were able to help the restaurant industry come back. So I think in that nobody, nobody [01:10:00] expected this.
Annie Schwab: There's no way you could anticipate.
Nina Tross: Yeah. What we're seeing now and and the fact that now these promoters are taking their energies and moving it to the field fuel credit or moving it to this self-employment credit that doesn't even exist.
Annie Schwab: I know.
Nina Tross: I mean, you hear some of this. So my role is to get this information out to our members to disseminate what's good and what's bad, making sure they're getting accurate [01:10:30] information. So when they're talking with their clients that they're sharing what is good information, not what they're learning on TikTok. Yeah. And this has been the commissioner's, you know, thing. When he was talking about the bad information, he said there it is focused on TikTok. So they are constantly fighting that and you know, there now have that, uh, that's a ad hoc the ad hoc committee for Scams and Schemes.
Nina Tross: Oh, yeah.
Nina Tross: And [01:11:00] so this ad hoc committee for scams and schemes, they're trying to just get taxpayers aware and, you know, talking about what's happening and what's the truth and what's not.
Nina Tross: How do you know the truth? Right.
Nina Tross: You know, so and people are losing millions. I mean, it's heartbreaking to read some of the stories of what's happening. So I see our role in probably yours also with your teams is to get accurate information out to the people that you work with so [01:11:30] that when something comes their way, they can make the determination that, yes, this is something we need to be aware of or no, let's think about this. And one of the the mistakes that people make is that they will get these emails and they'll call the number on the email, Which is a fraudulent number because it sends you to the hacker. So, you know, we're trying to educate them. Now pull out the credit card and look at the phone number on the back of the credit card. [01:12:00] Or if it's your bank, then wipe that out that email and go to your bank's banker.
Annie Schwab: Right. Your specific right.
Nina Tross: Because they're going to prompt and they're going to sound like your banker and they're going to make noise. They are really right. They're very sophisticated. Exactly. They and so it's.
Annie Schwab: Coming from your boss or your payroll. Right. You know, HR person or your insurance company or your bank or all of it. It's amazing what they can I know.
Nina Tross: And they're in they're bright, they're intelligent, [01:12:30] they're well versed. And so, you know, people are taken in by them and they they have some pretty elaborate schemes that I have been reading about.
Nina Tross: Good money.
Roger Harris: In doing that for them.
Nina Tross: Obviously, because they keep doing it. So I think, as you know, as any of the tax professional organizations here, or even yourself because you deal with the small business community. It's you know, part of our role is to, you know, listen to what's happening, to talk to our members, to get information [01:13:00] out to them. We do town halls. We do a weekly email. We do a quarterly journal. We do breaking news. I mean, we just send out so much information. We're just hoping they read it. You know, it's like you.
Nina Tross: Mentioned that talk.
Roger Harris: About nsdp for people that don't know NSD.
Nina Tross: Yeah. Okay.
Roger Harris: About the organization.
Nina Tross: So Nsdp, we're a member based organization. We're out of Vancouver, Washington. Our charter is education and advocacy. We're a national base. We have no chart, no chapters, you know, no affiliates. [01:13:30] So for somebody who does. Yeah. So somebody who doesn't need another monthly meeting, we're like, perfect okay. Yeah.
Annie Schwab: So we how do you join?
Nina Tross: Um, we do. We have computers. Here you go online. Okay.
Annie Schwab: So just from the website.
Nina Tross: Yeah, from the website. There is a membership. We have membership. Well, we have everything on. We try to do everything online now, as most people are. Uh, so for our members, we have, uh, regular memberships. We have associate memberships. So if you have a regular member [01:14:00] and then you have other members in your team you want to have join, and then we also have an executive membership. So for those who take a lot of members, take all their education through us. So they have a one price and they can take as many webinars as many of our update classes.
Annie Schwab: As many letters.
Nina Tross: Yeah, everything. So it's a one price for the whole year.
Annie Schwab: Fantastic.
Nina Tross: Yeah it is so. And then our members I mean, what we love about the forums is seeing all of our members, you know, because you can't. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
Annie Schwab: Seriously? Yeah. [01:14:30] They just it's like. It's like a reunion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially for the new members to to come and actually, you know, participate um, and get to, to get to and.
Nina Tross: Also for us to, you know, um, like the other night I had a dinner with Chris Freeland with NSA because I was Arizona 25 years. I was very active in the Arizona State Society and just old home week, you know, catching up on all the people we knew, all the people who have died. I mean, that was.
Annie Schwab: I was.
Roger Harris: Getting [01:15:00] to that age where I.
Nina Tross: Know so so not even for our members, but also for other tax professionals. I mean, we see some of them regularly at the monthly MPL meetings or other events, but some of them now they they don't travel, so we don't see them as often. The ability to interact with some of the IRS staff that we won't normally see all the time. So as the liaison for the Nsdp, I mean, I handle all of the interaction. You know, we [01:15:30] have one other person, the two of us. We handle all the interaction with the IRS and other organizations because, you know, for us, it is important that we have that interaction, that we have that voice, that.
Annie Schwab: A relationship, a trusted, you know, you it's a relationship based on trust and good knowledge and good, you know. Right.
Roger Harris: And interaction here with the IRS is totally different than the meetings we sit in.
Nina Tross: Oh yeah, it's much more casual. It's much more one on one. [01:16:00] Um, what was the five minutes? Is she giving us a.
Annie Schwab: Five minute heads up? We're good, we're good.
Nina Tross: So anyway, so it was just one of those, uh, you know, where my members, you know, when they come to us, that's what they're looking for. That we're their voice. We're their voice with the Internal Revenue Service. We're the ones. When they have issues, they come to us like today with the with the roundtable. And, you know, one of the nice things about the roundtable today is we heard different things [01:16:30] from every person. That was pretty amazing. Yeah.
Annie Schwab: Everyone was open and willing to share their experiences, their struggles with what they're seeing in the industry with the client base. Some, you know, everybody's from different states and. Oh yeah, it was great.
Nina Tross: It was. I thought it was one of the best because it wasn't the same. And I think that that's the thing that they want here also is to be able to hear the practitioner community, but they can't listen to everybody. So as the representative for NCP, it's [01:17:00] my job to go out to the members to say, okay, what is it you're hearing? What are some of the issues? I'll then send them on to the IRS, whether it's systemic, if I think it's systemic, I'll send it on to task to their Sams, um, area. And I've had great results with Sams. I would never, ever. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Awesome service. I mean, are we can you know, we have now direct contact with some of the key players in IRS that we can make some of the concerns known. Now [01:17:30] we can't say let us know what's happening, but at least we can let them know what we're hearing from our members, what we're hearing from the people here. And if they're hearing it enough times, they know they have to do something.
Roger Harris: And I think this commissioner wants to hear and I think his heart's in the right place. He can't he can't wave a magic wand.
Nina Tross: Right.
Roger Harris: But I think he really wants to try to make improvements as well.
Nina Tross: And that's what my members said today. They were they were so thrilled to be there. And they both said to me, you know, they said that we really [01:18:00] felt like he took in what we said.
Annie Schwab: It wasn't what I thought too. Yeah, it.
Nina Tross: Wasn't like, okay, well, it's nice to hear from you and let's move on. No, he.
Annie Schwab: Was so genuine and he was listening so closely, asking people to repeat themselves, making sure he fully understood what what the issue was. And it was. Yeah I agree.
Nina Tross: And the fact that we had RPO there and opp, I mean we had some big players there. We had Derrick Gantt, you know, we had some pretty big players there. So they were equally impressed with that, that they were seeing, you know, [01:18:30] Kim Rogers and Sharon Fisk and Derek Ganter and people who are, you know, normally not in contact with taxpayers because they're more at the management level, but they were there to listen to us.
Nina Tross: They wanted to hear too.
Nina Tross: Yeah. So I thought that was pretty impressive. That whole thing. So my members were very impressed with the whole experience.
Roger Harris: No, it was it was great. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap it up with that. Okay.
Roger Harris: From your perspective as practice owner, nsdp advocacy, all that, where [01:19:00] does our industry stand right now? What would you say is our biggest issue in our industry?
Nina Tross: I think the biggest industry, the biggest industry's challenge we have right now is getting tax professionals to listen to us. We're getting into you. We're getting information out to them. We're sending emails. We're sending email blasts. We're sending. And they're not reading it. They're not. No. And then and then somebody will call me like a week or a month or a year later and they'll go, you know, you really should. I'm going. Seriously, it's on the website. Go pick [01:19:30] it up. So I think if we could get. Now, are we overloading them with too much information. And so I mean.
Annie Schwab: Imo can be I mean you how many emails that your inbox a day.
Nina Tross: We have the same mission.
Roger Harris: We put all kind of stuff out. And so why don't you tell me about this.
Nina Tross: Yeah I know so yesterday.
Annie Schwab: And three days ago and a week ago and a month ago and.
Nina Tross: And so I think that if there were more conscious of what was happening and they were listening to some of the things because technically we are their, you know, their voice, that [01:20:00] it would help them in eliminating some of their issues. So I just.
Roger Harris: They get so.
Roger Harris: Engrossed in doing the next tax return. Yeah.
Annie Schwab: The day to day work.
Nina Tross: What's going on?
Nina Tross: Yeah I understand.
Nina Tross: Thank you Nina.
Annie Schwab: Thank you.
Nina Tross: Fantastic.
Nina Tross: Thank you for doing this.
Nina Tross: Yeah. No.
Nina Tross: No problem. Good work.
Roger Harris: Hello and welcome back to Dallas. We're wrapping up today. We've saved the best for last. Yeah. Pleasure to have Carrie Lemons from [01:20:30] the Internal Revenue Service. I think your official title.
Roger Harris: Is.
Roger Harris: Chief Communications and Liaison Officer. Get that run!
Terry Lemons: Yeah, I've been called many different things at the IRS.
Roger Harris: Sometimes by.
Terry Lemons: Me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Communications and liaison. We basically do, um, external communications through the agency. We work with tax professionals as well as Congress.
Roger Harris: Yeah.
Roger Harris: And your communication is not well, I mean, it's something to do with. But you're not writing the guidance that goes out. You're like the commissioners [01:21:00] and preparing for a hearing. Right. And write about schemes and scams and that sort of thing. Right.
Terry Lemons: My area. We're not the lawyers. We don't put out the legal guidance, but we put out news releases. We do social media. You know, we put out those kind of taxpayer and tax professional facing communications.
Roger Harris: And you are a big part of when the commissioner testifies or speaks here, it's your team. It's not necessarily you.
Terry Lemons: Right, right. Our organization works directly with the commissioner. [01:21:30] So and the commissioner in a lot of ways, is kind of the chief spokesperson for the agency. So when he goes and he talks to Congress, when he talks to the press, when he comes to places like here at the tax forums, we'll work with him and make sure that he's got what he needs. And, you know, make sure that, you know, he's got good information in hand. Yeah.
Roger Harris: And Annie and I just sat in earlier today and that was her first time to, you know, have that kind of setting. Tell Terry what your impression was.
Annie Schwab: Oh, I thought he was fantastic. He seemed so genuine. [01:22:00] And I loved that he would, you know, focus on whoever was asking the question as if he was, like, trying to absorb it. I loved that he would ask follow up questions if he wasn't quite sure. You could tell he I mean, he really cares. I mean, he cares and he wants you know, I was telling Rodrick, that's a lot of effort to get all these people in one room and do this at all the forums. And I'm sure his his schedule is just back to back. And it was like he was asking us, almost like requesting that we please just tell [01:22:30] me what you're seeing. Tell me what you're hearing. Like, he wants to. To know what the issues are. And. And I don't know if we've ever had a commissioner as welcoming of public.
Terry Lemons: Well, you got a glimpse of what Commissioner Danny Werfel is like inside the IRS. And he is a different commissioner. I mean, every commissioner that I've worked with, you know, going back into the late 90s, they've had, you know, strengths and things they focus on. But Commissioner Werfel is very unique in the sense [01:23:00] that he he really is kind of an information sponge, if you will. And he's very serious about getting outside of the Beltway. I mean, it's really easy if you're up inside federal government to kind of get insulated and lose touch with what's really going on out in the real world. And one of the things that he has been doing is whenever he goes out, he wants to make sure that he is talking directly to frontline IRS employees. He's talking to affected tax professionals.
Terry Lemons: And.
Terry Lemons: He's also out even like [01:23:30] talking to the press. So he sees part of his role is hearing directly from people. And when you're sitting in that commissioner's chair, 95,000 employees, it's actually good to kind of have that real world grounding. And that's it's really turning into a real source of strength for him, I think.
Alan Pinck: Yeah, yeah, he definitely.
Roger Harris: You could tell he's not just doing it to check a box and and that's that's very obvious. Yeah.
Terry Lemons: He he's worked in government a lot. He's worked in private sector. So he's [01:24:00] kind of got the best of both worlds going on. He's also a professional manager. So particularly where the agency is right now we are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in the agency history. So his background and expertise is really kind of coming to bear right now. And you kind of bring some of his outside knowledge and you pair it up with some of the inside knowledge we have in the agency. It's been a really powerful combination so far to help move the agency forward because it's a big agency. It takes its time. [01:24:30] Takes its time.
Roger Harris: To move 5000 employees.
Terry Lemons: Yeah. Yeah.
Roger Harris: That's a lot of people to manage. Yeah. All right, before we get into some of the topics, talk a little bit, how did you get to talk a little bit about your background in service, how you got to the IRS and got to where you are today?
Terry Lemons: Yeah. Well, that's an interesting story, Roger. And the IRS has a lot of different occupations. We're not just, you know, accountants and tax professionals or lawyers. Um, I'm actually an old newspaper reporter. Uh, I was working in little Rock, Arkansas, [01:25:00] and, um, I was actually covering Bill Clinton's presidential campaign for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. And then the babies started coming, and I needed something with more stable hours. And I ended up coming to the IRS in 1998. The agency was undergoing a big reorganization. And, you know, basically, you know, I didn't have an accounting background, but I was familiar with Washington and communications. And, you know, we're hiring a lot of people right now. And my story, I think, is, you know, somebody considering [01:25:30] coming into the agency, my, you know, I've had a great career at the IRS and it's been wonderful. Great people there. But it's a big agency. We serve a lot of different taxpayers, and that kind of diverse background is a strength for the agency. So we have places for a lot of people with different backgrounds.
Roger Harris: Yeah. And I think people who don't interact with the agency have the view that it's a bunch of bad guys and they're all out to get you. But the one thing I've learned in my years of working with the IRS is a lot of really [01:26:00] bright, smart people want to do a good job. Yeah. Now we're all going to make mistakes. God knows if you. You can't make more than I've made.
Terry Lemons: Well, let me just say, I mean, if you talk to any IRS employee, I mean, if they're being up front with you. Look, we make mistakes. We know we need to do a better job. It's one of the things that's refreshing about commercial, Mr. Werfel, is that our work at the agency is important. But he also acknowledges that we need to get better at doing things. And, [01:26:30] you know, it's it's it's an interesting job, but we need people to come in and bring outside perspectives to help us get better. And we also right now have this extra funding that we're tapping into to make some of these long term changes that are critical to move the agency forward and make improvements.
Roger Harris: So where's the big.
Roger Harris: Issue from your perspective right now? What are the big issues that you guys are talking about or want to talk about?
Terry Lemons: Well, a big a big part of it is the transformation. [01:27:00] I mean, we're using this $60 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to make improvements in taxpayer service. We're trying to bring more fairness back into enforcement. A lot of our compliance work has really dropped off over the last 10 to 12 years, but we're also very active in terms of trying to do more to help taxpayers. And one of the things that's really a hot button issue for us right now are tax scams and schemes, which are out there being fueled by social media.
Roger Harris: Yeah. No, I mean, and the [01:27:30] crooks comment.
Annie Schwab: I was about to say, how are they so smart?
Terry Lemons: You know.
Terry Lemons: They're a little bit like, you know, they're a little bit like the coronavirus, Covid 19. They're out there mutating and changing. And ever since I've been to the agency in the late 90s, these tax scams have been out there. We had slavery reparations going on, you know, in the late 90s, which was a reincarnation of an earlier scam. And what we've seen is these scams over time, they're variations, [01:28:00] and we're seeing that take place now, the difference now, what's kind of turned this into a, you know, a bit of a pandemic in terms of the scam issue, is social media used to be, you know, these scams were kind of limited and kind of underground. Now you got people out on TikTok, you know, throwing this crazy stuff around and people believe it. Yeah. And I mean, these are smart, well-meaning people that get caught up in like, oh, I'm entitled to $10,000 free if I do the [01:28:30] fuel tax credit. But the problem is they're not talking to, like, legitimate tax professionals. And that's part of what we want to do. We want to work more closely with the tax pro community, make sure we kind of are encouraging people to go get trusted advice and not take your tax advice off. Maybe somebody who's offering a get rich quick scheme out on social media. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Roger Harris: I think you just put.
Roger Harris: A coalition together of some various groups.
Terry Lemons: Yeah. This is one of the most interesting things we have going on at the IRS right now. [01:29:00] We have had it a couple points, periods where we've joined together with the states, state tax agencies, with the software industry, with groups like pageant as well as others in the tax professional community. And we kind of joined forces to do a united front. And we've agreed to basically combat tax scams and schemes together, because we all realize this is a growing threat for well-meaning taxpayers are being taken advantage of. And if you get tied up in one of these [01:29:30] schemes, there's a lot of downstream impacts. You know, you don't get a refund. You're entitled to. If the refund does get out, you're, you know, you face penalties and interest. If we come knocking and there's also a threat to the US Treasury, I mean, you know, these these scams and schemes cost you know collectively the nation money. So I'm really excited that the industry and the states and the IRS have agreed to work together on this.
Roger Harris: And all that time that's spent on chasing these things down keeps you from doing what you [01:30:00] want to do better.
Annie Schwab: Or utilizing resources that could be spent in someplace, somewhere else. And I'm sure, I'm sure part of it's educating, you know, getting the real knowledge out. But are the states? Are you all sharing information, like to run systems to try to identify it faster.
Terry Lemons: Yeah, yeah.
Terry Lemons: Well, this this effort is an offshoot of what we call the security summit effort. Okay. That people may not be familiar with. But when identity theft was a runaway train back in 2014 and 2015, [01:30:30] we assembled a similar coalition that basically tackled identity theft. We increased our internal defenses, the states and the industry and the IRS, and we actually helped knock down identity theft. So the thought is, with the scams and schemes, if we can trade more information, kind of set up an early warning detection system. So if we see a new scam emerging, we can get the word out. We can let people know and try to like stop it before it comes [01:31:00] into the system and floods the IRS and the states with a lot of bad tax returns. Yeah. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Like always something.
Terry Lemons: Absolutely. Well, we're really excited about it. And I mean, this is one of those things. Commissioner Werfel's priority is that, you know, he wants to be working to help taxpayers. And we've seen so many of these scams come in over the last nine to 12 to 18 months. We just recognize we need to do something more and we need help. We need help from pageant. We need help [01:31:30] from tax professionals out there just to get the word out. Make sure you know family and friends are checking official information and not relying on that kid on TikTok who's offering, like, a special life hack to get free money from the IRS. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Well, thank you for letting us help you. I think we all got to pitch in because it's a it's a drain on all of our resources.
Terry Lemons: Absolutely. Well, we appreciate the help. You know, your members, your affiliates, [01:32:00] and you know others in the tax pro community. We can't run the tax system by ourselves at the IRS. We need help. Tax professionals play a vital role. And I mean it's you make you make a huge difference. You may not hear. Thank you very often, but please know the IRS appreciates all the work that the tax professionals do out there.
Roger Harris: Well, I can say this. It's always a pleasure to work with you and all your team, and thank you for joining us for the podcast today.
Terry Lemons: Thank you Roger. Thank you Andy.
Roger Harris: Pleasure to have you. [01:32:30] I know you're a busy man.
Annie Schwab: Well this is fantastic. So thank you for all the work you do at all the IRS forums. I know it takes a lot of effort and time and planning and organizing and it's been fantastic.
Terry Lemons: Well, we're delighted.
Terry Lemons: You're part of it. And thank you and appreciate everything you guys do.
Roger Harris: And thank you for joining us. Thanks, Jim. Lanny, this has been quite a day.
Annie Schwab: It has been I'm kind of worn out. [01:33:00] I don't know about you.
Roger Harris: This is this wasn't a typical podcast, but I enjoyed it.
Annie Schwab: I know I love talking to all the different groups and hearing why they're here and what they how they think, the profession, where it's going, how can we help? Who's fantastic? I enjoyed every second of it.
Roger Harris: Well, and I hope all you listeners enjoyed it. We try to do something a little different. Take advantage of being here at the IRS forum. I hope you've learned a little bit more about them. And yeah, maybe a little bit more about the IRS as well.
Annie Schwab: Absolutely. And if you haven't if you haven't come next year, [01:33:30] I really encourage you to take a minute. Um, look at the the cities. They'll come out with the five cities and they'll come out with an agenda and it's well worth it. This has been a wonderful event.
Roger Harris: And we may do another podcast next year.
Annie Schwab: Oh, yeah. Well, we might still be here. Yeah.
Roger Harris: Well, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's Federal Tax Update podcast. Tell your friends about it and join us again next time. Thanks, everyone.
Annie Schwab: Thank you.
