Taxes: Our Hottest Media Topic!

By Lois Whitehead, Public Relations Manager

As the new year unfolds and tax season shifts into high gear, the New York State Society of CPAs is in a wonderful position to generate positive publicity about the CPA profession.

Tax laws have changed since last year, and the Society wants to help bring the tax-paying public up to date. To do this, and to help ensure that the profession takes complete advantage of the media exposure that the tax season affords, the Society is engaged in a number of initiatives. For starters, the Public Relations staff is working to create interview opportunities with daily newspapers and radio and television stations. The staff is in the process of contacting NYSSCPA chapters for recommendations for tax specialists who would make a good interview.

If you do take part in an interview, be prepared. A good idea is to create some key points that you wish to get across during the interview. These sound bites of advice will point the public in the right direction and will maximize your quotability. If you are participating in a radio or television spot, be sure the producer first gets a copy of the points and issues that you plan to address.
The Society will also be preparing and distributing public service announcements about taxes to New York radio stations. The Society is continuing its weekly five-minute tax segment that airs across the state on Saturday mornings with ABC’s Eyewitness News. And, as in years past, we will again join forces with The Daily News to help generate a weekly tax question-and-answer column, and to sit on the paper’s annual tax panel in which the public can get answers to their questions.

In addition, the Society’s Tax Oversight Committee is preparing a white paper about tax shelters, which we will publicize.
Adding to these outreach efforts will be a series of money management columns that the Society plans to send to weekly newspapers, with the latest developments from the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

And remember, the online operations of news outlets also present interesting media opportunities. Informative articles or materials such as tax tip bulletins always stand the chance of getting posted in their entirety on the websites of newspapers and radio and TV stations.

If you would like to be considered for an interview or are interested in drafting tax-related materials for posting on a news website, you may contact lwhitehead@nysscpa.org or Sanjay Paranandi, public relations specialist, at sparanandi@nysscpa.org.