Just thought I would
write an updated post about my background so you can get some perspective on “where I am
coming from” when it comes to my perhaps sometimes controversial opinions on
tax policy and life in general. Some of this “stuff” has been previously mentioned
in various other posts over the years.
My first encounter with income taxes came in February of 1972, when I was in my
second semester as a freshman at local Jesuit institution St Peter’s College (I
am not Catholic – it had a good rep for business). I had taken the first half
of Accounting 101, but had not taken any tax classes.
My uncle’s tax professional, James P Gill, would hire students from St Peter’s
College during the tax season as apprentice tax preparers. During his annual
visit, always on Lincoln’s Birthday (then an actual legal federal holiday), my
uncle happened to mention to Jim that I had taken my first accounting course
and that I was helping him with the books for the non-profit organization for
which he worked. Jim told my uncle to send me in to see him – and the rest is
history!
On my first visit to Jim’s office he took me to a desk in the outer office. He
gave me a copy of a client’s previous year’s tax return and a briefcase full of
papers that constituted the current year’s tax “stuff” and told me to “jump in
and swim”.
I still remember my first 1040 – it was for one of the “outside salesmen”
insurance agents who shared an office around the corner from Jim (Jim did all
the agents in the office). While I no longer prepare that person’s returns, I
still – 42 tax seasons later - do one of the agents from that office, who
recently retired. And I also still do the bartender who had worked at the pub
next to our office.
Prior to meeting Jim Gill I had no experience with or education in any aspect
of income taxes. I had never even done my own simple returns – they had been
prepared by my father’s tax pro (not Jim, but a colleague from his NYC office).
As I mentioned I had not taken the tax course at St Peter’s College yet. Which
was good – Jim preferred to get student apprentices before they had taken any
tax courses. He wanted us to learn the practical reality of tax preparation –
not the sanitary classroom version.
If I had a question about a tax return I would ask Jim, who would either take
the time to explain the answer or tell me where to find the answer in the CCH
tax library. So I was self-taught via on-the-job training. I learned how to
prepare income tax returns in the very best way possible – by preparing income
tax returns. And I learned at a “storefront” office located at a busy
transportation hub of a large metropolitan city, at a firm with a clientele of
taxpayers in all walks of life and all levels of income and education.
I never did graduate from St Peter’s College. One reason, I believe, is that my
major was Business Administration and not Accounting. I found that I got a much
better education at 59 Sip Avenue (the address of Jim’s office) then at SPC. I
actually also felt that I had received a much better education at an “inner
city” high school than I did at a Jesuit college. I eventually received
under-graduate and graduate degrees from a non-traditional institution based on
life and work experience – solely for the purpose of pleasing my family.
I did enroll in and pass a correspondence 1040 preparation course from the
National Tax Training School back in the mid-70s so I would actually have a
piece of paper to “document” my education and ability as a tax preparer. For me
this was basically a “refresher” course.
As a result of being self-taught via on-the-job training I am not an “education
snob”. I respect the man, or woman, and not the office, or the degree(s), or
the credential(s). To earn my respect you must show me that you are accomplished
in something other than the ability to pass tests.
This is not to say that I do not acknowledge the value and benefits of
post-secondary education – just that there are alternative methods of receiving
an education that are at least just as valid as traditional classroom learning.
I am what I have
referred to in my discussions of the IRS tax preparer regulation regime as a “previously
unenrolled” preparer. I am neither a CPA
nor an EA. I have never had any desire
to audit financial statements, so I did not become a CPA. And I have never had any desire to represent
taxpayers before the IRS, so I did not become an EA.
I have also been accused of being “cynical”, especially when it comes to
politics. I believe this comes from a long history of dealing with the “great
unwashed masses” (which I no longer do, thank the Lord) and the fact that I
grew up in Hudson County – the “poster child” for political corruption in what
has become probably the most politically corrupt state in the union.
The political machine of Hudson County Democratic party boss Frank Hague
rivaled the days of Tammany Hall. Hague was replaced by “reform” candidate John
V Kenny, who perfected the corrupt machine to equal if not exceed that of
Chicago’s Mayor Daley. My family was among the few real Republican residents in
the Democratic-dominated County.
I was born and raised and lived most of my life in Jersey City, county seat of
Hudson. But I recently moved to the peace and quiet of rural Northeast
Pennsylvania - to the area I had been visiting for just about every summer for close to 50 years.
As I have boasted often in the past – in 42 tax seasons I have never prepared a
1040, or any other tax return, using tax preparation software. And I have no
intention of starting now. I see absolutely no cost effective benefit to me for
using flawed tax preparation software.
The closest I came to using software was during my brief tenure as a
“para-professional” for the then big-eight CPA firm of Deloitte Haskins + Sells
back in the late 1970s. I remember filling in an “input sheet” for a Form 1040
for calculation via Computax. As I recall, my reaction back then was that by
the time I finished filling in the input sheet I could have actually manually
prepared the return.
And while I do, when appropriate, submit NJ-1040s for full-year residents
online via the NJ Division of Taxation NJWebFile system, as I am required to do
by state law, I have never filed a federal income tax return electronically. I
am not against electronically filing returns, and, as I have said time and
again, I will gladly do so when the IRS allows me to so do free of charge on
their website, via a program similar to NJWebFile, and without having to
provide my fingerprints.
Over the years I have had as many as 4 cats at a time (and when living “in sin”
we also had a dog, rabbit, gerbils and newts), who I think of as my children. I have always felt that having cats was much
more better than having children.
I currently live, and work out of, a “home office” in my condo in Wayne County,
PA. I gave up my storefront office,
previously that of my mentor Jim Gill, years ago when I realized that I was
paying rent for the place year round but really only using it for 3 months –
and the fact that I did not want or need any more “walk-in” clients. I had my
fill of the “great unwashed masses”.
Although I had started my own tax and accounting practice after leaving
Delloite, Haskins + Sells I continued to work with Jim Gill on week-ends and
the last two weeks of each tax season up until he handed the practice to me in
1999.
I had been receiving calls from Jim’s clients at my own office, then in an
office building in Union NJ, saying that Jim’s office was still locked and that
he was not answering his phone. I myself had not been able to access his office
at the beginning of February as the lock had been changed.
I went to Jim’s house in Hoboken and found him lounging around the living room
in his pjs. “I am 75 years old – I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said.
“You can have the practice.” Just about all of his clients, whom I had known
and done over the past 26 years, remained with me, as many do still today.
Jim did return to help me out during the last weeks of the 1999 and 2000
seasons, and went to his final audit in August of 2001. Had he lived a bit
longer we would have celebrated 30 years of working together.
Jim had the radio going constantly in the office, initially playing NYC station
WRFM which played “American Popular Standards”. As a result I find that I
cannot work in silence; I, too, must have the radio on (I actually listen to
out of state and web-based radio stations online) or a CD (usually an original
Broadway cast recording) playing while I am working away on my 1040s, or while
I am blogging.
While I am providing
insight as to "where I am coming from" I might as well take this
opportunity to again make it perfectly clear that I am not looking for more
clients. While writing a blog is a great marketing tool for a professional
practice, I do not write THE WANDERING TAX PRO with an eye toward getting more
business.
Speaking of THE WANDERING TAX PRO, I began blogging in the summer of 2001 after attending that year's annual NATP national conference, where one of the classes I took talked about blogging.
At present I have
more 1040 clients than I want or need. And if I did decide to look for new 1040
clients all I would need to do is put the word out to my existing client list
and I am sure I could get at least 50 new 1040s just from internal referrals. I
do not want any 1041, 1065 or 1120 clients period - so that is not an issue.
I have often been asked why I have not followed in Jim’s footsteps and taken on
apprentice tax preparers, which would allow me to accept new clients and avoid
unnecessary GDEs. I was actually approached via email by an accounting student
who had discovered me online and wanted to become a tax season “apprentice”.
To be perfectly honest I am not blessed with the patience that Jim Gill had,
and don’t think I would make as good a teacher or “mentor”. And, as I work out
of my small condo, there is really no room for anyone else to work.
So, enough about me already. Any questions.
TTFN
