Originally published on Forbes.com Apr 12th, 2013
Thanks to years of browsing and seeing things that I can’t resist along with a reasonably tolerant covivant, portions of my living area have the feel of a library about them. I think I’ve got a better American history section than most bookstores. It slows me down, as I often find myself picking up old friends and starting to read them again. The most recent reacquaintance was The Last Angry Man.
It is the intertwined stories of a 68 year old Jewish doctor in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn and an “ad-man” nascent TV producer who, fictionally, hit on the idea of reality TV in the fifties. Dr. Sam Abelman is an irascible old man, who refuses to adapt. His favorite phrase is “The bastards won’t let you live.”
I have not seen any observation to this effect but noting that The Last Angry Man was released in 1958 when the work of James Gould Cozzens was at its peak of popularity and controversy due to the release of By Love Possessed , the title must have been inspired by Cozzens 1935 The Last Adam. Dr. Bull, the main character, is an irascible old man in a small town in Connecticut. Will Rogers played him in the movie , which I have yet to watch. I was reflecting that we don’t have fictional doctors like that anymore. Then I remembered House.
Who is doing this work for tax professionals, though ? David Foster Wallace’s magisterial Pale King takes us into the inner workings of an IRS service center. The Universal Baseball Association Inc – J. Herny Waugh Proprietor gives us a local firm public accounting grunt who never passes the exam. We have the accountant who from a random observation falls into villainy in the Producers.
Mameve Medwed skewers some tax attorneys who enter the lives of her young heroines in Mail and How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved my Life. Kirstie Ally in Look Who’s Talking plays a CPA and there is a great scene where she and her brother and a friend are preparing individual returns at night to pick up extra money. No one, to my knowledge though, has provided the in-depth fictional treatment of tax season that has been done countless time for more dramatic events such as murder trials – The Just and the Unjust by James Gould Cozzens being but one example.
Then I remembered my days as an English major. I was way too literal minded to succeed as an English major. I hit the wall in my Sophomore year taking Hawthorne, Melville, Twain. To this day I still believe that Moby Dick is mainly a story about guys working in the whaling industry, but I may have learned something when I was a Freshman taking Contemporary Fiction.
Professor Huffhines taught us about the thin line between fiction and non-fiction. One of the examples was Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. That was non-fiction with possible elements of fiction. A counter example was Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe. Wolfe’s family was not real happy about how thinly they were disguised. It dawned on me that we tax bloggers cultivate personas. Even if what we say about ourselves is strictly true, the process of selection makes each of us a self created literary character. But has this new literary form created a full blown character equivalent to fictional doctors like Sam Abelman ? It has.
That would be Robert Flach – The Wandering Tax Pro. If you go to his blog now all you will see are stern warnings and instructions not to bother him to his loyal client base:
As promised in my January client letter – any returns not in my hands as of the end of today (March 25th), with all the information needed to properly complete the return, WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY EXTENDED.
From now until April 14th I will be unavailable and inaccessible. I must become a “1040 machine” and devote 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week to preparing 1040s, with the absolute least amount of interruptions.
As for those unfortunates who rely on professionals who use “expensive and unreliable “software to prepare returns or do it themselves, don’t even think about bothering the Pro:
Before contacting me with questions about how a blog post relates to your specific situation, please be aware that I do not give free tax advice to non-clients by e-mail, comment response, or phone. So don’t waste your time and mine.
Joe Kristan, who like me is a CPA, characterizes the Flach version of tax season as a “two month death march”.
I have no doubt that Bob Flach is what he says he is. He is somebody who prepares tax returns and learned how to do it from somebody who prepared tax returns. Frankly, there is not much formal education beyond the fourth grade that you need to prepare 1040s, so I have no doubt that he is a better preparer than – well – just about anybody. I really miss doing returns by hand and feel sorry for the kids who will never have that as part of their training. Nonetheless, there is something almost poetic about the defiant stand the Pro takes on software:
FYI, in 35+ years of preparing tax returns I have never used tax software to prepare a 1040. I prepare 400+ tax returns a year – all by hand. When I am asked what tax software I use I simply point to my head, indicating my brain.
How many times do I have to say this? Just because a person has the initials CPA after his/her name does not mean that he/she knows his/her arse from a hole in the ground when it comes to 1040 preparation.The CPA exam is not a test of 1040 knowledge or competence. I doubt there are any questions on the exam that have to do with 1040 preparation. I expect any tax questions on a CPA exam are concerned with “entity” taxation (corporations, partnerships, estates and trusts). The CPA exam is certainly no substitute for the initial competency exam now required of “previously unenrolled” tax preparers.And while CPAs are required to maintain a designated number of hours of annual continuing professional education, there is no requirement that any of this CPE be in federal 1040 taxation.
Does he really think that CPAs in tax practice spend their 40 hours of annual CPE studying GAAP ? It is not that he does not have a point, it is just the drama of it that I find exciting.
Welcome Back Bob
You have to wait for the end of tax season to see Bob’s blog in its finest form. He grumbles about the GD extension that force him to actually do some work after his two months in the bunker grinding out returns by hand and comes out with choices pieces of prose like:
The idiots in Congress have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not just idiots but totally f**king useless as well – they can’t get a damned thing done (except, as John Stewart pointed out on a recent DAILY SHOW, vote to make school lunches less healthy).In its latest update on the issue NATP reported that considering the mucking fess that our economy is in “Congress has a lot on its mind” – no cracks about “what mind” – and it appears this does not include the licensing of tax preparers.
Bob will come up for air Sunday night, presumably at midnight. He doesn’t work on the last day of tax season in honor of a client of his who had made a practice of always showing up on the last day. Bob had actually sent him away from the Pro’s Jersey City office when he tried to come a couple of days early one year. The client’s name was Maurice Barry:
A Port Authority officer for 16 years, Maurice “Moe” Barry, 48, was assigned to the PATH commuter train system. The resident of Rutherford, NJ, upon hearing the reports of the terrorist attacks, was one of the first on scene when he rushed from Jersey City to Lower Manhattan and then into the North Tower to help in the rescue efforts. As thousands fled the searing flames and smoke of the Towers, Officer Barry was attempting to reach trapped and frightened workers on the upper floors. The last time he was seen, he was on his way to the higher floors to get people out.
The Pro will never forget him and thanks to his end of tax season ritual, neither will I.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.