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Message From the President

By Dan Fordham, Adirondack Chapter President

I am in the midst of tax season as I write this. But, with any luck, by the time most of you will see it, your tax season will either be over or close to being over. I hope that everyone had a successful season, and can now relax and take some time off.

I’d like to thank everyone for coming to the various seminars that we held over the past year. Each one was well attended, and hopefully most of you received some benefit from participating. Also, as I can attest, it’s nice to be able to attend worthwhile CPE courses close to home.

In addition to the Empire Zone and ethics courses, which we sponsored earlier in the year, we also presented seminars in Lake Placid during October and November. I would like to thank representatives from the IRS and New York for the e-file seminar. Even though there was a lot of information given in a short period of time, I think the message was clear that we as practitioners need to start e-filing, if we have not yet done so.

At this time during my firm’s tax season, with less than 25 percent of our individual tax returns out the door, we have already exceeded the number of e-filed personal tax returns from last year.

In November, our chapter presented a seminar on Section 1031 Like-Kind Exchanges. As most at the seminar would agree, the presenter, Peter A. Karl, an attorney from Utica, delivered one of the most useful and well-presented seminars I have attended in recent years.

To close out our current year, we are planning on having one more seminar in May, in Malone. It will involve two to three CPE hours, the officer installation for the upcoming year, and golf. We will keep you apprised as the time gets closer.

Finally I would like to thank and say hello to the over 400 CPAs who attended the seminars this past summer and fall on New York State Empire Zones, which I presented for the Society’s Foundation for Accounting Education.

At this time I am scheduled to teach these courses again in July and August, at a variety of locations across the state. With legislative changes to the Empire Zone program currently being discussed, and hopefully finalized by then, the course this year will be sure to include those changes, in addition to some updated material from last year. Watch for the dates in literature sent by FAE, or go to its web page under the “Continuing Education” link at the top of www.nysscpa.org.

Dan Fordham can be reached at 518-563-7717 or fordham@westelcom.com.