AICPA Versus Block Advisors In Spat I Hope They Both Lose
So why am I just getting out the popcorn rather than taking sides in this conflict? What Block Advisors is promising is giving people access to the type of relationship that many people have with CPAs and EAs and even the occasional preparer, like Bob Flach, the Wandering Tax Pro that earned us the title “Trusted Advisor”. Somebody who knows the tax law in a practical sense and knows and understands you and tailors their practice to your foibles or perhaps practices tough love to get you more organized. If you are ever audited they will defend you tenaciously and if necessary fall on their sword for you. When it works really well they will complement your personality, reassuring the timid and restraining the overly aggressive.
IRS And Liquor By The Wink
This little comedy may seem far removed from the interminable IRS scandal now on Day 1043 by TaxProf Count. We privilege not for profit organizations in a variety of ways, not just through federal tax benefits but also by letting them sell liquor, where others cannot, run gambling, or make significant political expenditures without disclosing donors. There is even an entirely unmerited dose of credibility that organizations get for having achieved exempt status.
Yet we lay the regulation of entities seeking exemption from a variety of rules at the doorstep of our tax collection agency, even when the status has little or no tax significance as was the case with the 501(c)(4) organizations that made up the core scandal and this particular attempt at 501(c)(7) that just wants to serve liquor.
Follow Me
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.