Originally published on Forbes.com June 11, 2013
It was only a matter of time before I heard from my friend James about the IRS conference scandal. James is a lot like me, except his career has been a lot more checkered. I was continuously employed for over 33 years. I don’t think James has ever been continuously employed for 33 months. I don’t know how many times I told him that you can’t tell the managing partner he is acting like Hitler, especially when it’s true. At any rate he needed to gloat a bit about my current circumstances, but, more importantly he thinks he has figured out what the real, real story is about the infamous multi-million dollar IRS Anaheim line dancing contest.
James: I knew you wouldn’t last long with a national firm.
Me: How many times have you worked for national firms?
James: Let me think. I guess there were three times, if you don’t count the time I quit on the day they hired me.
Me: And the longest you lasted?
James: Six months.
Me: I lasted seventeen months which is probably longer than your three put together.
James: Yeah, but it’s not long for you. Anyway, I want you to tell Steve that I have the IRS conference thing figured out, so he can assign somebody good to write it up.
Me: I’m sorry James. Mr. Forbes won’t be assigning a real reporter to write up your theory. You are just going to have tell me.
James: You call him Mr. Forbes?
Me: I don’t call him anything. I think of him as Mr. Forbes.
James: OK. I’ll have to spin it out for you.
Me: Of course.
James: I have to give you credit you figured a lot of it out. Like the fact that the 4.1 million was not that expensive on a per person basis. $1,500 or so for three days isn’t so bad. I really wish we could hire some of those TIGTA guys to look at the AICPA . Registration is usually $400 to $600 for a one day conference and it scales up for longer ones. It is always at an expensive hotel. The AICPA wastes a lot more on conferences than the IRS does.
Me: You are right there, but the difference is that with the IRS it is taxpayers money.
James: Screw that. The AICPA is a not-for-profit.
Me: It’s not a charity. It is a 501(c)(6) like the NFL.
James: Whatever. That’s not my point anyway. The thing is – Who the hell likes these freaking conferences anyway?
Me: Somebody must like them.
James: You sure don’t. And neither does your whatchamacallit covenant or whatever.
Me: It’s covivant. You are right CV does not like the coferences much, but I heard it was kind of fun going on Spiderman without having to wait in line because they had their own section of Disneyworld.
James: Let me spell it out for you. What would you rather be doing playing golf or doing tax research?
Me: Doing tax research, of course. I didn’t think any CPAs liked to play golf. I thought it was something they had to do like wearing expensive suits and driving fancy cars. To impress potential clients. I was never very good at that. Always got lousy marks for executive presence. That’s why I was never on the executive committee. That and – well, never mind.
James: You’re wrong. Those guys actually like all that crap. Remember how when you moved from downtown Worcester to Westboro, you told me it was going to be inconvenient because you couldn’t stop at Jeremiah’s on the way in. Like you expected the office of a large regional CPA firm to be conveniently located near a homeless shelter where you were the treasurer. That’s not normal, Riles.
Me: Well, when you put it that way.
James: Now thanks to this big bogus uprorar, it will be a really long time before the IRS spends any money on conferences at fancy hotels. Do you see the upside of that for guys who work for the IRS?
Me: It means that if you work for the IRS, you will not have to go to things like that.
James: Exactly. The people who like to play golf will be upset by that, but the ones who like to do research will be happy about it. Now, of course, when you and I are representing clients we would just as soon that the Revenue Agent be somebody who likes to play golf, but that is probably not in the best interest of the government.
Me: So you think the whole point of this elaborate scandal is to weed the golf players out of the IRS, so IRS will be a band of hard core tax geeks.
James: You got it.
I’m not sure that James is right, but I do agree that it would be nice if we could hire some of those TIGTA guys to look at the way the AICPA does conferences. The national firms might want to think about it too.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
To be fair to both the AICPA and the IRS, I had always wondered why conferences tend to be in pretty expensive places. The AICPA Tax Division would meet twice a year. Once in Washington and then someplace west of the Mississippi. When I was on a technical committee and getting a break, I went to New Orleans, Phoenix and San Diego. Other conferences I have been to either AICPA or my firm have been in New York, Las Vegas, Dallas and Orlando. The fact is there are actually a limited number of cities that can accommodate large conferences. Assuming for the sake of argument that it was a good idea to gather together all the managers of SB/SE in one place – all 2,600 of them, they could not have done it in Worcester.
There are simply not enough hotel rooms. The national firm I worked for had a leadership conference for all partners and not quite partners (I was too close to mandatory partner retirement to come in as a partner when we were acquired) and a tax leadership conference for managers and above. Somebody smarter than me seems to think things like that are a good idea and if they are a good idea for CPA firms, then they are probably a good idea for the IRS. None of the extra frills that people are so outraged about with the IRS are at all unusual at tax conferences. If you are thinking about a career as a tax professional, though, I have to tell you that there is really no truth to the stories about the tax groupies flocking to the places where tax superstars gather in conclave.