Firm Management

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held that federal agents can’t hold onto a CPA’s computer data indefinitely while they sift through the data looking for dirt.

Attracting a more diverse pool of members is a goal for many professional associations today, especially those competing for the attention and commitment of top students in science, technology, engineering and math.

A weekly roundup of professionals in the tax and accounting profession that have changed jobs and/or been promoted.

Small business accounting and tax company Intuit has partnered with cloud document storage and sharing firm SmartVault, which will provide integrated cloud-based document management for Intuit's two professional tax systems, Lacerte and ProSeries. The combination of these professional programs is intended to further automate tax preparation workflow, from receiving source files securely from clients to printing and sharing final tax returns with a built-in custom branded client portal.

Governor Deval Patrick signed legislation to increase the minimum wage in increments to $11 per hour by 2017. The law also lowers unemployment insurance costs.

Indiana has become the first state to permit competency-based education to qualify for CPA license renewal. The Indiana Board of Accountancy and Indiana CPA Society have partnered on the new pilot program, and the change was facilitated through work of the CPA Center of Excellence. Announced last week, the CPA Center of Excellence has been established as a source for competency assessment, competency enhancement and intelligent collaboration for CPAs.

During the first decade or two of my accounting and tax life, I always felt that everyone knew more than I did. I was always a bit intimidated by the depth of knowledge other CPAs, EAs and attorneys seemed to have – and prayed that I could know just a little more of what they knew.

Boston-based JDJ Family Office Services, which provides administrative multi-family office and personal CFO services to high net worth individuals and families, will retain its entire 21-person staff and continue to deliver the same suite of customized services to its existing and expanding client base.