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Hit the Ground Running

By Doug Hoffman, Adirondack Chapter President

After a summer respite, our chapter is getting off to a rapid-fire start in September with three meetings scheduled:
Friday, Sept. 16: Canadian CAs joint meeting, Cornwall, Ontario

Thursday, Sept. 22: IRS/NYS e-file and tax update, Lake Placid, N.Y.

Monday, Sept. 26: Ethics seminar and NYSSCPA Officers Town Hall Meeting

All of these programs will be afternoon sessions, and all but the Sept. 22 IRS/NYS will have optional dinner events.

Gary Benware was successful in contacting a group of charter accountants in Cornwall who were interested in a joint CPE that will share information on the U.S. and Canadian income tax and estate taxes. We are open to any volunteers to present the U.S. version. If you are interested, contact Gary or me.

Susan Marks, senior tax specialist with the IRS, will present the IRS/NYS program again this year. She will bring the NYS e-file specialists, who will discuss the new mandatory e-filing requirements for tax practitioners. This program is usually scheduled in November, but due to scheduling conflicts with the presenters, we were forced to schedule it in September. The only other opportunity was Oct. 11, but after explaining to the IRS that was a bad date for tax preparers, we opted for the September date.

The annual ethics seminar is a must for those who haven’t obtained your required four credits of ethics CPE every three years. This session will qualify for two of the four credits. The dinner session will give us a chance to meet and discuss our concerns with the NYSSCPA state officers and give them a chance to update us on the issues impacting us on a national, state and local level. With all of the new laws and regulations affecting school audits and other professional issues this year, this should be a meeting you don’t want to miss.

Once again, I want to send out an appeal for volunteers to help our chapter. We are running out of officers and board members and will have a real succession problem if nobody steps up to the plate and volunteers. You may be overwhelmed with the number of sessions that we have planned for September, and you may have to drive an hour or two to get to them, but at least they are in the North Country and we don’t have to drive to Albany or further to get the same information. Let’s keep the Adirondack Chapter alive and well and share the workload by spreading it around. Each firm should have at least one representative helping out. It would only take an hour or two of your time a month.

Doug Hoffman can be reached at 518-523-2581.