There has been a lot of attention paid to blockchain. But despite that, the distributed ledger system is simply another way of delivering information. It’s plumbing as far as regulators as concerned.

“Regulators don’t care what technology you are use,” says David Deputy, Vertex’s director of  strategic development and emerging markets, and president of the Accounting Blockchain Coalition. “I feel like Paul Revere. I keep saying the regulators are coming, the regulators are coming.”

Vertex itself has not yet brought a blockchain-based system to the transaction tax market, but that is coming. It is testing a system and hopes to have it on the market not too far in the future. That is simply bringing “high-quality tax compliance to blockchain through automation”, says Deputy.  To put it another way, doing what Vertex has been doing all along with a different generation of technologies.

Deputy’s work with Vertex and with the coalition dovetails on this. A major problem, he says, is that  “If you are exchanging goods and services it’s subject to transaction tax” and that is not always happening with companies which use blockchain. “There are companies selling goods and services today and ignoring this,” he continues.

Deputy notes some refer to accounting with blockchain present as triple-entry accounting. “You have witness that is watching our debits and credits,” he notes. The blockchain network validates and preserves the transaction.

But there is a case to be made that it goes beyond triple accounting—to the dimension added by governments with government increasingly trying to get close to the transaction, with the possibility of payment to governments coming straight off the invoice.

Split payments—with part of the money paid going to the vendor and an other to an account for taxes—has been around for a while.

“Italy has some split payments,” Deputy noted. But blockchain makes it easier to track payments and make sure governments get their cut with part going to the vendor and the rest going to an account for taxes.

Italy has had split payments since 2014.  It. has gone further. Under a system that went into effect this year, Italian businesses must convert invoices for private domestic transactions into a government-defined XML format and send them through the SdI exchange. 

Armanino has launched the Armanino AI Lab this week. Designed for business executives who want to deploy AI technologies within their organization, the lab is designed to educate decision makers in a pragmatic approach to utilizing AI tools.

The Lab incorporates predictive analytics, robotic process automation and virtual assistants. Members attend peer-to-peer meetings and have access to product and vendor reviews. They can also interact with Armanino’s data scientists, AI developers and consultants; learn about AI best practices; and execute on AI proof of concepts. 

. “Armanino’s AI Lab will serve as a one-stop shop that enables its members to harness the opportunities that AI offers without being left behind by their competitors.” Tom Mescall, partner-in-charge of Armanino’s Consulting practice, said in a prepared statement.

Paychex has introduced enhancements to its Paychex Flex HR application. Among the updates includes the ability to tailor the frequency of employee reviews, such as quarterly and monthly.

The software also offers review templates. The company also added 25 self-service actions users can initiate during the workflow approval process. Paychex also added several features to its Live Reports, which include hiring and turnover. In addition, the December release includes benchmarking against like organizations by region, company size, and industry. Finally, an events calendar enables administrator to keep track of key dates.

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has launched CCH Axcess Financial Prep, an online trial balance application. Financial Prep utilizes the same database used by other members of the Axcess software family.

The new software provides for automatic grouping of tax returns and financial statements, along with dynamic views of tax summary reports, financial statements and lead sheets. It prepares balances for business tax returns that then populate in CCH Axcess Tax, with which it instantly integrates.

No installation is required for existing CCH Axcess customers. Non-Axcess customers are required to have one install instance.

For resellers, the issue now is meeting user needs and making money, not worrying about whether software is in the cloud. Certainly, there are many thousands of on-premise mid-market accounting systems in use and a decent number are being sold. But the action is in the cloud and it is a matter of features, which is what users really care about. The issue is which product is better at handling nonprofits, which is good for businesses with inventory, which best suits professional services and which delve into highly specialized markets. In the fact, the thought did not even occur this year to count how many of the Top 100 2019 VARs carry cloud products. It was just assumed they all do. That is why this year’s theme is “The Cloud Rules”  If you are not in the cloud game, you are not really in the game.

2018 Report: Getting a Handle on the Cloud

Buyers and sellers are talking less and less about cloud software. The discussions increasingly center around how the software, which happens to be cloud based, helps companies solve business problems, not on the technology used. Read more how this is happening.

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Report: Payroll Gets Easier: Running payroll, whether for a company to pay its own employees or to pay clients’ employees, has rarely been easy. But it is necessary, which is why the question of whether tax and accounting firms should offer services as a line of business has had some firms moving into the business and others moving out. Read more and find out where your firm falls.

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Report: Using the Cloud to Protect Your Data

The handwriting is in the cloud. And given some real barriers to adoption of cloud-based software, the move remains a question of when, not if, for most businesses with the purchase of web-based applications picking up speed. Download this free special report and read how.

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7 QUESTIONS TO HELP GROW YOUR ADVISORY SERVICES

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Texas tax preparer Francisco Ventura has been sentenced to 63 in prison for tax return fraud. The Dallas area man has also been ordered this month to repay $8.3 for the tax loss his action cost the United States. 

Venutra was sentenced for conspiring to defraud the United States and for aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.

According to court record Ventura operated two tax business in Texas from 2012 through 2015. In 2014, he was de facto owner and manager of a business named AJJ Tax and More, along with Uptown Multi Services, which he co-owned with Mario Melendez. Melendez pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to defraud the United States and to aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns and was sentenced to 51 months in prison in April 

From November 2013 through May 2014 , Ventura, Melendez and others prepared phony tax returns with false education credits, Schedule C expenses and other deductions. Ventura also taught classes for new preparers to teach them how to use fraud to hike client refunds.

Congress should clarify the role of the Internal Revenue Service in administering the Earned Income Tax Credit, Tax Advocate Nina Olson, said in report relesed to Congress this month. Other changes should include new definitions and processes, along with establishing minimum standards for tax preparers, the results said.

The Earned Income Tax Credit: Making the EITC Work for Taxpayers and the Government, written by a team with the Taxpayer Advocate Service, contains major recommendations for changes to the EITC program.  

"As we show throughout this report, the way the EITC is structured and the way the IRS is administering it often harms the very taxpayers it is intended to serve," Olson said in a prepared statement.

A major recommendation was clarifying the IRS's role, including the IRS' acknowledging its role in administering benefits programs such as the EITC. That requires employees with different skills and a separate set of practices and processes, the report said. Besides preventing improper payments, the IRS should also help taxpayers to receive benefits for which they are eligible. 

Redesigning the EITC to separate the worker component from the family-size component of the credit. It should also revise the definition of a qualifying child.

The report says minimum standards for taxpayers and software providers would protect taxpayers and improve the accuracy of EITC claims

Congress should determine if the administrability of tax provisions, especially family and child-related provisions whose eligibility criteria may be difficult if not impossible for the IRS to verify. It should also hold regular oversight hearings, giving the IRS the opportunity to identify successes and challenges in the laws it administers. Such forms would also provide a forum for Congress to hear from a variety of interest groups.

The report was written by a team of EITC experts led by Professor Leslie Book of the Villanova University School of Law, who served as a “professor in residence” with TAS, and Margot Crandall-Hollick, an EITC expert with the Congressional Research Service.

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has launched TaxWise Mobile, a mobile interface, which integrates with TaxWise Online. The system is designed to support full remote tax preparation, the company said recently.

TWO Mobile supports the ability of taxpayers to photograph tax documents, which can be stored directly to Vault, a TaxWise rapid document capture feature. They can also sign and send the final return to preparers and track return status and updates.

Preparers can utilize a new taxpayer interview and communicate with clients during the interview.

Two versions of  TWO Mobile are available. The base version, which supports three users, has an introductory price of $1,515 with the 15-user TWO Mobile Enterprise carrying a promotional price of $2,400.

Liberty Tax has embarked on a dramatically new direction in which the company acquires franchised or complimentary businesses. That includes its  purchase this month of Buddy’s Newco, which operates most of Buddy’s Home Furnishings business, for about $25 million.

 Liberty Tax will remain a publicly traded company and the tax preparation business and Buddy’s will operate as standalone companyiss. The public parent will change its name to Franchise Group Inc. The purchases is being made possible by affiliates of Vintage Capital Management, whose Vintage Tributum, acquired the shares for former CEO John Hewitt almost year ago

Liberty will launch a tender offer of $12 per share of its common shares with  Vintage and B. Riley Financial agreeing not to tender their shares.

One Vintage affiliate received 2.083 million shares in Liberty for $25 million used in the deal while Buddy’s borrowed about $83 million in cash. With Buddy’s existing debt being repaid the announcement said Liberty and its subsidiaries would realize net proceeds of about $80 million from all these moves.

Wipfli has hired Thomas Wojcinski to leadits cybersecurity practice in the Chicago and Eastern Wisconsin market.  Wojcinski specializes in cybersecurity, IT risk management and IT governance initiatives for American and multinational organizations. 

He worked with Baker Tilly Virchow Krause from July 2003 until taking the new job. From September 2012, he was a director who was responsible for the firm’s growth and development of cybersecurity, IT process assurance, and IT governance services nationally.

Frazier & Deeter has hired CPA James Dawson as a tax partner with a focus on international tax. He will serve American and foreign enterprises in a wide range of tax areas.

Dawson will focus on subjects such as tax efficient global supply chain management, structuring of international business models and operations, cross border transactions, project management and coordination of services in foreign jurisdictions.

He was previously a partner of international tax for accounting firm Crowe from May 2015 through October 2018. Before that, he was national leader of international tax services at Cherry Bekaert from January 2012 through April 2015 and was a partner in international tax for RSM McGladrey from 2006 through 2012.

Xero has named Hubdoc’s co-CEO Jamie McDonald as executive general manager of product, accounting and global services.  McDonald, who will continue his Hubdoc role, will oversee development of core accounting tools in the newly created position.

Xero acquired Hubdoc in August. Hubdoc go-to-market teams will continue to report to Jamie Shulman, Hubdoc’s other co-CEO. McDonald said he would be continuing work in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning for the benefit of Xero customers around the globe.

Val Steed, widely known as a consultant and CPE presenter in the accounting community, has accepted a position as director of accountants for Zoho. Steed, a shareholder, is best known for his work with K2 Enterprises since January 1989.

“I’ll be responsible for maintaining industry relationships with national and international accounting organizations and top accounting experts,” Steed said in a LinkedIn post. He said he will also work to initiate partnership iwith accounting technology companies. Zoho is interested in connecting with all kinds of finance professionals, including bookkeepers, accountants, PAs, CPAs, CAs, CFPs, CFOs. Zoho markets a range of web-based applications, including accounting, CRM, HR and IT management.

“Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.” - Simon Mainwaring

Remember, a new leaderboard with updated rankings is generated every two weeks, so keep up the great work on social media and watch your ranking climb! Think you’ve got what it takes to make the Top 100? Join for free today!

“Social media is a much more personal approach to marketing than more traditional tactics like placing an advertisement in a local newspaper, and lends itself to a more human approach. You should always err on the side of professionalism, but sharing a few details about the person, or people, behind your company can give your brand more personality – something that works very successfully in the world of social media.”  

 Here are some highlights from the newest Top 100…