As previously posted (see http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/management-features/intuit-puts-where-its-mouth-is-offers-stimulus-grants-for-firms.html) Intuit recently launched its own version of the suddenly popular “stimulus program”. Today they released more details.

Intuit’s co-sponsors are the National Society of Accountants, the National Association of Enrolled Agents and the National Association of Tax Professionals. These organizations are providing a representative to sit on the panel of judges that will determine the 10 stimulus grant winners.

They also announced the judges --- good people all. (And no, I didn’t accidentally leave my name off the list. I wasn’t invited! Hmmmmm)

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Back in the “olden days,” before most professionals learned to quit playing the silly game, it was an annual spring tradition for some idiot journalist somewhere to decide to “test” tax practitioners and publish the results under the guise of helpful consumer information. They’d deliver a pre-determined set of information to different tax preparers and then compare the resultant returns.

The information was always incomplete or questionable in some way and the “game” usually disallowed follow-up questions from the preparer. The published story was almost always flawed in the “tax analysis” area and trained professionals would wince at the simplistic explanations offered for truly complex situations. Eventually the idiot journalists (please forgive my obvious redundancy) ran out of victims and I have not seen the story in many years. Until today.
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I case you hadn’t heard, there’s been significant talk lately of some sort of economic problem with the US (and world, for that matter) economy. Jobs are being lost, retirement and college savings are disappearing, businesses are cutting back and people are just plain scared. So what does that have to do with our profession’s “harvest season”? From my conversations with tax and accounting professionals around the country I’ve learned it has a LOT to do with it! When client’s pocketbooks hurt, it most definitely impacts us. However, depending on who you are, where you are, and the kind of practice you maintain that impact may be positive or negative, extreme or slight.

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